Author Unknown – Industrial Worker, October 1988
In early September, Wobs Gary Cox and Billy Don Robinson were invited by the Ukiah Earth First!ers in to hold an IWW workshop at their gathering, September 16-18.[1]
Gary Cox reported that there were many interesting and informative workshops held over the weekend. They camped in old-growth Douglas Fir along with the two hundred to three hundred people who attended the gathering, most of them active Earth First!ers, while several others were curious supporters. The IWW workshop, conducted by Judi Bari, was attended by 120 of the gathering’s participants.
Cox reported that there was much heated and healthy debate around the racist and misanthropic statements allegedly made by Earth First! spokesmen, and notes that it would be a serious error to attempt to file all Earth First!ers under one label. They are a very mixed group of people, the majority of whom are “angry with the senseless waste and destruction of the system we have all inherited, and are eagerly searching for alternatives.” Cox and Robinson also observed that several workshop participants were very curious about the IWW vision and structure as a way to “insure control of their movement and their newspaper.”[2] They were also very appreciative of IWW history in the Northwest.
In general, Fellow Worker Cox reported, the weekend was quite productive and several IWW membership cards were left behind. One logger remarked that he was “going back into the woods to organize his crew.”[3]
Cox concluded by suggesting that (the IWW has) much to offer this young movement, and (the IWW) has a great deal to learn from them. Their knowledge of ecology is invaluable to a union which is very much concerned with this issue, and their youthful energy and creativity is contagious. The report concludes with the announcement that there was some discussion of a western regional conference of Wobblies and Earth First!ers to be held in sometime in the near future.
Epilogue: at the conclusion of this workshop, Billy Don Robinson initiated Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. Judi Bari’s IWW membership number was x332349 and Darryl Cherney’s was x332351.
Addendum: elsewhere in the same issue, it was reported that shortly after this conference Earth First!-IWW members from Ann Arbor, Portland (Oregon), Tacoma (Washington), and Madison (Wisconsin) attended the IWW’s General Assembly and discussed other campaigns—and many would be discussed in numerous forums (see for example Bill Meyers letter to the November 16, 1988 Anderson Valley Advertiser: Stop CFC Production Now)—but ultimately, outside of Local #1, which Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney would charter just over a year later—few lasting joint Earth First!-IWW locals would form.
Footnotes:
[1] This conference was announced in the mainstream press as well. “Earth First! Plans Campout”, staff, Eureka Times-Standard, August 22, 1988 (neither Judi Bari nor the IWW mentioned).
[2] It’s not entirely clear what is meant by this statement, but Darryl Cherney recalled in early 1991 that Roger Featherstone was trying to organize an IWW “shop” among the Earth First! Journal staff! This effort never got very far; if it had, this story may have taken a different direction, because the Earth First! Journal did not consistently promote the efforts of the local Earth First!ers.
[3] Nobody can recall the identity of this logger, however.