Introduction:

Early in the IWW's history, the union discussed sabotage freely, and various members of the organization (notably Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and William Trautmann) advocated "sabotage" and wrote detailed pamphlets on it as a tactic.

Perhaps one of the most controversial pieces of literature ever written, was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's pamphlet, Sabotage.

The controversy is not so much the contents of the pamphlet, but the extremely negative (but false) connotations the word "sabotage" conjures up among most people not familiar with the concept. Furthermore, many young activists uncritically accept the negative and false images conjured up by the term.

Contrary to widely held opinion--which sometimes finds its way to big budget Hollywood Films, such as Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country--sabotage did not originate from workers throwing their wooden sabots (shoes) into machines to stop them. In fact, the word has a much less romantic origin. The wooden sabots sometimes worn by the working class in the early industrial age made their walking inefficient. Early attempts at organizing did involve property destruction, but sabotage merely meant "organized inefficiency" similar to the inefficient walking on wooden sabots.

In actuality, sabotage is a form of organized inefficiency by workers, designed to negatively impact the employer. But the one thing sabotage isn't, is destruction of the machinery of production, or the product itself. The IWW believes that the machinery of production and the product of workers' labor belongs to the workers themselves, and destruction of the same would be like burning one's own house down! Throughout its history, the employing class had tried to paint the IWW as arsonists and nihilists, but the reality is that such attempts are hostile lies spread by the employing class to stir up reactionary hysteria against the union.

The IWW (and all other unions) have historically used organized inefficiency as a form of direct action at the point of production to gain improved working conditions from the employers. The employing class seeks to give the working class as little as they can get away with. When workers withdraw their efficiency, there is little the employing class can do about it, so they spread lies about "sabotage" and spread lies about workers "destroying property".

Nevertheless, the IWW does not advocate "sabotage" (though the IWW has absolutely no problem with strategic, organized inefficiency as a weapon against the employing class where appropriate), and it is recommended that everyone read the following three accounts:

Ralph Chaplin, on "Sabotage"

Ralph Chaplin wrote The General Strike and this is from his autobiography, Wobbly, pages 206-7.

"Even after the war was declared, he fought to the last to the last ditch for reprinting Elisabeth Gurley Flynn's Sabotage...It was never reprinted. Saner counsel prevailed. Frank Little was voted down by the General Executive Board. Bill Heywood (sic) had his way again in the matter of proscibing the 'Black Cat' I was using rather freely in cartoons. My "Sab Cat" was supposed to symbolize the 'slow down' as a means of 'striking on the job.'

"The whole matter of sabotage was to be thrashed out thoroughly at our trial. There is no doubt that our advocacy of it as a class-war weapon contributed to the jury's hasty and unanimous verdict of guilty. the evidence, as interpreted by the prosecution, was against us, but the facts in the case were not. Gurley Flynn's pamphlet, for instance, was a brief restatement of the type of sabotage advocated by European anarchists and syndicalists from which the IWW had adopted only a few features applicable to conditions in the USA (emphasis added).

"The word 'sabotage' is derived from the French word 'sabot', wooden shoe. in the France of the previous era wooden shoes were dropped into machines by striking workmen ready to walk off the job. In the course of time this practice was extended to the use of monkey wrenches, explosives, or emory powder.

"The prosecution used the historic meaning of the word to prove that we drove spikes into logs, copper tacks into fruit trees, and practiced all manner of arson, dynamiting and wanton destruction. Thanks to our own careless use of the word, the prosecution's case seemed plausible to the jury and the public. We had been guilty of using both the "wooden shoe" and the 'Black Cat' to symbolize our strategy of 'striking on the job.' The 'sabotage' advocated in my cartoons and stickerettes was summed up in the widely circulated jingle:

The hours are long, the pay is small
So take your time and buck 'em all.

We tried to show the difference between our sitdown and slowdown strategies and the kind of sabotage used by extremists in Continental Europe."

"Sabotage" - The Historical Context

When William Haywood and 165 other members of the IWW were indicted in early September 1917 for violation of the "Espionage Act" of June 15, 1917, among the charges in the indictment were:

Fourth Count ...Said defendants...unlawfully and feloniously conspired, combined, confederated and agreed together, and with one Frank H. Little, now deceased, and with diverse other persons to said jurors unknown, to commit a certain offense of unlawfully, feloniously and willfully causing and attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States, when the United States was at war:..circulating throughout the United States...certain pamphlets entitled "War and the Workers," "Patriotism and the Workers," and "Preamble and Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World,"...

Fifth Count ..causing... to be sent... a copy of some of the following books, to wit, "Sabotage" by Emile Pouget and "Sabotage" by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,... all of the publications contained information and advice advocating the commission of fraudulent practices ... (emphasis added)

That said defendants would cheat and defraud out of money, employers of labor throughout the United States, and especially those employers engaged in the manufacture of munitions and supplies for the United States Army and Navy... (vast amounts of copy omitted - full text available by mail on request.)

In Oct. 1917 the GEB adopted a new organizational policy re: sabotage, later confirmed by convention. All books and pamphlets then in circulation were withdrawn, some were revised, and some like "Sabotage" were withdrawn permanently.

THE I.W.W. STAND ON VIOLENCE AND SABOTAGE

The I.W.W. has never advocated or practiced the destruction of either property or life, and stands ready to expel any member who either advocates or practices any crime. In the mouth of an I.W.W. propagandist, the word "Sabotage" never meant anything other than the withdrawal of efficiency from the job, by working slowly, "giving a short day's work for a short pay check." However, the I.W.W. has discovered that the word "Sabotage" has been misinterpreted by the enemies of Labor, and so has removed it from the vocabulary of the organization. Since 1917, the I.W.W. has neither published nor sponsored, nor knowingly tolerated the circulation of any pamphlet, periodical, or printed matter, advocating Sabotage, nor permitted any of its speakers or members to use the word. (emphasis added)

The I.W.W. still believes in legal methods, including the slowing down on the job, the strike on the job, and all strikes and boycotts. But the I.W.W. does not break the law.

Resolution Regarding Sabotage

Adopted by the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World and first published in Defense News Bulletin of May 4, 1918.

WHEREAS, The Industrial Workers of the World has heretofore published, without editorial adoption or comment, many works on industrial subjects, in which the workers have a natural interest, including treatises on "Sabotage" and

WHEREAS, the industrial interests of the country, bent on destroying any and all who oppose the wage system by which they have so long exploited the workers of the country, are attempting to make it appear that "Sabotage" means the destruction of property and the Industrial Workers of the World favor and advocate such methods, now,

THEREFORE, in order that our position on such matters may be made clear and unequivocal, we the General Executive Board of said Industrial Workers of the World, do hereby declare that said organization does not now, and never has believed in or advocated either destruction or violence as a means of accomplishing industrial reform;

• first, because no principle was ever settled by such methods;
• second, because industrial history has taught us that when strikers resort to violence and unlawful methods, all the resources of the government are immediately arrayed against them and they lose their cause;
• third, because such methods destroy the constructive impulse which it is the purpose of this organization to foster and develop in order that the workers may fit themselves to assume their place in the new society,

. . .and we hereby re-affirm our belief in the principles embodied in the Report of this body to the Seventh Annual Convention, extracts from which were later re-published under the title, On the Firing Line.

Reaffirmed by the present General Executive Board and published December 13, 1919 in New Solidarity.