Welcome to the web site for the LWIU 120, a website for all workers in forests. All workers engaged in logging operations, in saw and shingle mills, and in preparing wood for fuel and manufacturing purposes. Bark and sap collection, and restoration forestry.
The LWIU is responsible for many of the good working conditions and benefits that Lumber Workers came to expect in the late 20th Century. There is not currently an organized Lumber Workers Industrial Union, but consider the following:
- Working conditions in the industry improved as a result of the IWW, but declined after the IWA (AFL-CIO) purged elected leftists from its membership.
- Working conditions in the industry have been in decli
ne for the past two decades due to automation, liquidation logging, and unionbusting. - The IWA has (sometimes) prevented a bad situation from becoming much worse, but they have not stopped the attacks on timber industry workers, and in some cases the IWA has made it worse.
Clearly, there is still a need for One Big Union in timber. Even though much of the information on this site deals with the past, we believe that (other than changes in technology) almost all of this information is as relevant todayas it was a century ago.
 |
Official LWIU 120 Publications - A collection of shorter publications by the IWW and the Lumber Workers Industrial Union 120:
|
 |
Frequently Asked Questions about LWIU 120 Is there currently an organized IWW Timber Workers Union? What did the IWW ever do for timber workers? What's wrong with the timber industry now? I want to join the IWW and organize my fellow Lumber / Timber / Forestry Workers into LWIU 120. What do I do next? Get the answers to these questions and more. |
 |
The Everett Massacre, a History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry - by Walker C Smith, 1916. A comprehensive account of the IWW's organizing efforts in timber up to 1916 and the Everett Massacre and the repression of union organizers that followed. Perhaps the earliest known comprehensive book on the IWW in the Lumber Industry. |
 |
The Centralia Conspiracy, by Ralph Chaplin, 1919. Class struggles are often historically violent, and in most cases, the violence is perpetrated by the employing class. Such is the case in Centralia in 1919. Although some Wobblies attempted to shoot back at their attackers in self defense, their actions are the results of being subjected to a pattern of vigilante mob hysteria, particularly following World War I. |
 |
The IWW in the Lumber Industry, by James Rowan, 1920. This document represents the complete, unabridged edition of James Rowan's Sixty-One Page account of the (then) short but colorful history of the IWW in the Lumber Industry of the American Pacific Northwest from 1907-20. |
 |
The Lumber Industry and its Workers, by the IWW, 1922. The breadth of knowledge possessed by the workers in the Lumber Industry is demonstrated here, and it shows that, even in 1922, control of the industry by the workers was entirely possible. So while technology and conditions have changed, the song remains the same: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. |
 |
Lumberjack - by Tom Scribner, 1966. Tom Scribner was a timber industry worker and a union organizer his entire life. He joined the IWW in 1914 and was a part of the LWIU's fight for the eight-hour day. He founded two newspapers, Lumberjack News and Redwood Ripsaw. He was a radical all his life, and wrote a great deal. Much of his best work, he self-published in Lumberjack. |
 |
Rebels of the Woods, the IWW in the Pacific Northwest - by Robert L. Tyler, 1967. From the Book: "Rebels tells the story of America's most creative and unyielding labor revolutionaries. In the early years of the twentieth century, the veneer of civilization sloughed off with terrifying ease, and the feared and hated Wobblies were attacked (often violently) in the woods, on the streets, by the police, in the courts, and in the media." |
 |
IWW Timber Workers Local #1 - 1988-94. Workers and environmentalists have long struggled together around common issues in northwestern California, but it was Judi Bari that brought the IWW into the struggle for workers against the corporations. Undoubtedly, Fellow Worker Bari was the catalyst that reintroduced the IWW to the timber industry in 1989. |
 |
For Further Reading - Books about The IWW in the Lumber Industry
In this annotated bibliography you will find a collection of books, pamphlets, and articles about the IWW and Lumber Industry in North America, writings by timber workers, and other lumber industry unions. |
