Industrial Worker

Vinícius Rodrigues de Souza, Vecteezy. Our individual, collective, and institutional identities organize us. The common view suggests that identity is a stable given. You are X or Y and nothing changes that. Not only is this view inaccurate, it limits our ability to meet coworkers where they are and makes connecting with them difficult as a result. Identity is a construct and refusing to engage with it as a construct doesn’t make it any less constructed. It merely cedes the power to some usurper.

This editorial is a response to the November 13, 2025 article, “Rebuilding the IWW,“ and “A Response” published on May 1, 2026. Two recent articles published in Industrial Worker, “Rebuilding the IWW” and a short response piece are starting points for an important discussion about the relationship between the IWW and organizers for other unions, the left, and labour-oriented left groups (which I will shorthand as “the left” for simplicity’s sake).

FWs gathered at the 2026 Denver Organizing Summit. Courtesy FW Noah L. On April 25th and 26th, Wobs from cities ranging from Seattle to Boston gathered in Denver, CO for the 2026 Organizing Summit and Social. Hosted by the Denver GMB, the summit was open to Wobblies in good standing who have completed the Organizer Training 101 (OT101).

Courtesy of Evan Buhler, Montreal Gazette. Workers march on May 23 along Ste-Catherine St as part of the sex worker strike. I’m hoping that this article will encourage sex workers to think about their place within the labour movement. This article is an amalgamation of ideas that were born out of conversations I’ve had with sex workers and labour organizer friends. During the pandemic I became active in sex work labour organizing through a group called SWIM (sex work industrial movement).

The first International Workers Day hinged on the May Day festival and the strike for the eight hour work week, according to activist Lucy Parsons, who was involved in planning the first May Day strike in 1866. But it would only evolve into the holiday it is today after someone threw a bomb at the rally in Chicago. In response, the government would round up and hang prominent organizers of the time, including Louis Lingg, who was not even present at the rally.

In light of the ongoing Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Industrial Workers of the World Printing and Publishing Workers Union and Freelance Journalists Union expresses its solidarity with the Union of Journalists in Lebanon, a member of the International Federation of Journalists. The Israeli invasion has already claimed the lives of at least 1,268 people in Lebanon, according to the Ministry of Public Health as of this writing. Among the dead are at least four journalists, per IFJ.

A group of Wobblies congregate in Bellingham, WA for May Day in 1981. May Day has layers of meaning—some celebratory, others tragic—shaped across centuries. From its origins as a festival of spring and renewal, to its modern incarnation as International Workers’ Day, May Day reflects the aspirations and struggles of generations. It is a celebration of life beyond labor: time for ourselves, for our friends and families, for leisure, for imagination. It is both a remembrance and a call to action.

Utah Phillips, his wife, and one of his sons standing on the front “porch” of the flanger. Brendan Phillips Industrial Worker recently sat down with Fellow Worker Brendan Phillips, son of famous musician and labor activist Utah Phillips, to discuss the Utah Phillips Caboose and Library. Fellow Workers everywhere are widely familiar with Utah Phillips’ music and contributions to the IWW, but they may not know that he once lived in a railcar.

Special thanks to x431037 for all the data crunching and graph making work that went into this article. The year was 2025. Austin, Texas, was hosting the Southern Regional Organizing Assembly (SROA) for the first time. Members came from all across the southern states to attend, learn about workplace organizing, and make connections with fellow workers. We were ready for 50 members to attend, as we had at the 2023 SROA, but only about 30 showed up.

This editorial is a response to the November 13, 2025 article, “Rebuilding the IWW.“ Why do we need to be connected to the labor left? The fellow worker presents two main reasons: we need to be “relevant” and visible to them, and that we lose good organizers to DSA and other groups. But why be visible on the labor left? I’ve also had the experience of going to labor events and meeting people who saw the IWW as a relic or simply as irrelevant to what they were doing.