The general organization issues leaflets and pamphlets from time to time and aims to build up and extend educational literature in all languages as fast as the resources of the organization permit.
Locals hold educational meetings in halls and on the streets of the industrial centers. Reading rooms and halls are maintained by all the larger locals. Revolutionary literature is kept on file.
Special shop meeting are held in efforts to organize certain industries.
STRUGGLES OF THE I. W. W.
In 1906 the eight hour day was established for hotel and restaurant workers in Goldfield, Nevada.
In the same year sheet metal workers lost a strike at Youngstown, Ohio, due to the American Federation of Labor’s filling the places of the strikers.
In 1907 textile workers of Skowhegan, Maine, 3,000 strong, struck over the discharge of active workers in the organization. The strike lasted four weeks and resulted in a complete victory for the strikers with improved conditions. John Golden, president of the United Textile Workers, A. F. of L., attempted to break this strike by furnishing strike breakers.
In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 saw mill workers were involved in a strike for a nine hour day and increase of wages from $1.75 to $2.50 per day. On account of the exceptional demand for labor of all kinds in that section at that time, most of the strikers secured employment elsewhere, and the strike played out at the end of about six weeks. The saw mill companies were seriously crippled for months, and were forced indirectly to raise wages and improve conditions of the employes. This strike gave much impetus to I. W. W. agitation in the western part of the United States.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1,200 tube mill workers were involved. This strike was lost through the scabbing
