Welcome to the website of the IWW in the german language area!

We are a grassroots and democratic union helping to organise all workers in all workplaces.

Our Regional Organizing Comittee (IWW-GLAMROC) was founded 2006 in Cologne, Germany. We have brances in several German cities, in Austria and contacts in Switzerland and Luxembourg. (See our directory)

If you are looking for a contact in Germany and Austria please try:

e-mail: glamroc(at’)wobblies.de
mobile: +49.162.8724010 (H. Stuhlfauth / Editor www.wobblies.de)

This website is written in german but we have few english texts, especially press releases.

You will find more information about the IWW on the websites of our british and american fellow workers:

http://iww.org.uk/about/main
http://www.iww.org/en/about

Solidarity with EUREST / COMPASS GROUP Workers

In 2011/2012 we have a special focus on struggling against the canteen and catering company EUREST / Compass Group which is well known around the world for subminimum wages, unfair working conditions and disrespectful behaviour towards workers and unionists. The IWW has a shop branch of Eurest-cooks in Frankfurt at Commerzbank. One Member of the IWW, Fellow Worker Harald Stubbe, is an elected delegate at the national shop stewards council (Gesamtbetriebsrat) of EUREST .

IWW & Germany – some historical links

For those who are interested in history and working class movements: There are some links from radical german unionists to the historic IWW. The secretary of the IWW founding convention, William Trautmann, was a german-american-new-zealand beer brewer. Like many militant unionists and socialists he was expelled from Germany under Bismarcks anti-socialist laws (1878-1891) and went to the US.  At the turn of the centuries maybe there were more radical german socialists in Chicago, New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis than in Germany.

The first Labor Comic Strip in the World (as far as we know in 2011) – the famous Mr. Block and his adventures – was created by the german expatriate Ernest Riebe in Minnesota from 1913-1922.

The name Industrial Workers of the World was chosen in 1905 instead of Industrial Workers of America. One argument in the discussion – following the convention minutes published in 1969 – was not to exclude seamen from Hamburg, who were willing to join the Union. The more important point was of course to show open arms to jewish, irish, italian and especially chinese and afro-american workers who were segregated and discriminated against in the “home of the brave land of the free” not only by the ruling classes and their government but also by those unions affiliated to the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

After Word War One the IWW and their concept influenced the leftwing communist german Allgemeine Arbeiter Union (General Workers Union). The well known leftwing-communist Paul Mattick joined the IWW in Chicago in the late 1920ies after he was blacklisted as a unionist during the Weimar Republic.

From the mit 1920ies to the beginning of nazi dictatorship in 1933 the IWW had chartered branches of seamen and longshore workers in – at that time – german cities Danzig (Gdansk) and Stettin (Szczecin) – the “Internationale Seemanns-Bund”, part of the IWW Marine and Transportation Workers Industrial Union 510.

More IWW History:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Big_Union_(concept)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/