21/03/2023
As Ralph Chaplin (who wrote the IWW / labor anthem "Solidarity Forever" and created many of the IWW's famous "silent agitator" cartoons, including the IWW sabo-cat) later recounted in his autobiography, Wobbly (pp. 206-07):
Even after the war was declared, [Big Bill Haywood] 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 proscribing 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 con-tributed 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 (allegedly) 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 (emphasis added). 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 sit-down and slowdown strategies and the kind of sabotage used by extremists in Continental Europe."
The article goes on, and can be read in the link within the comments.
Imagine a "Russo-Bailey Safety Bill" that could be brought up and proposed by our elected officials? Both of these fine people lived in New York, worked in our City and were brutally murdered in the regular course of a working day. One while getting a bite to eat by her post in Queens, the other whilst going home on the train in Brooklyn.
Both were known for helping others, FDNY EMS Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling, from Commack, LI, for her EMS work and being there as a first responder after 9/11, and Steamfitter Thomas Bailey, from Carnarsie, Brooklyn, who was known as "Hero" by his coworkers for stopping the brutal attack of a woman on the L train.
I'm a Steamfitter and I've always taught the new guy/gal that "the most important job you have is going home to your family in one piece at the end of the day". I'm sure in the 4,500 member EMS there's similar nomenclature. Unbeknownst to many "civilians", we have some of the most dangerous vocations. Talk to an EMS worker who has to show up first when someone needs help, talk to a construction worker after a terrible accident on the jobsite. When so many were told to stay home and shelter, we were all deemed "Essential" and manned the jobs. How many of us on our own time ran towards the towers or showed up during the recovery after the 9/11 attacks? With all our safety training, we know that horrific accidents and altercations are common in our fields. We know that there is always that chance that something bad can happen on the job at any given time, that there is always the chance of paying the ultimate price. That being said, we also know that no one who works in this city should be murdered getting a bite to eat in their uniform or on the train headed home from the job. Any one of us could have been Allison, any one of us could have been Thomas.
Our city failed them, our elected officials have failed each and every one of us. The city and our contractors demand the best from us when we work every day, we do our part, what we get in return for our efforts just isn't good enough. All of us who live, work and pay taxes here deserve better.
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