General Strike

A Speech by William “Big Bill” Haywood

Preamble to the IWW Constitution

The working class and the employing class have nothing incommon. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want arefound among millions of the working people and the few, whomake up the employing class, have all the good things of life.Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workersof the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with theEarth. We find that the centering of the management of industries intofewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope withthe ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unionsfoster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to bepitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the tradeunions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into thebelief that the working class have interests in common with theiremployers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that allits members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary,cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any departmentthereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fairday's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."It is the historic mission of the working class to do away withcapitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry onproduction when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

Introduction

Born in Salt Lake City, William “Big Bill”Haywood (1869-1928) went to work in themines at the age of nine. He joined the WesternFederation of Miners in 1896 and was active asan executive board member and as secretary-treasurer of that organization until 1907. Oneof the founders and the best known of theI.W.W. leaders, he became its secretary-treasurerfor 1916-18. In September 1917 he was arrested andconvicted under the Federal Espionage Act. In 1920, whileout of Leavenworth Penitentiary on bail, he fled to the SovietUnion where, for a time, he was a leader of the AmericanKuzbas Colony in Siberia. He died in Moscow in 1928 after writing his memoirs, which he titled Against the Current. They were published as Bill Haywood's Book by InternationalPublishers (New York, 1929).Haywood wrote several pamphlets and numerous articles. He was one of the I.W.W.'s most famous lecturers. In World of Labour (London, 1913), G. D. H. Cole said: "Haywood couldmake himself understood by a crowd that did not know a word he said, merely by waving his arms and shouting." OnHaywood's death, an obituary in The Nation (May 30, 1928)called him "as American as Bret Harte or Mark Twain."Haywood's pamphlet The General Strike (Chicago, n.d.),published by the I.W.W., was a summary of a speech he gavein New York City on March 16, 1911.