Text of short recruiting pamphlet for the I.W.W.’s Local 460, the Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union.

‘To the Workers Who Feed the World.’ Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union, Industrial Workers of the World, Chicago. c. 1920.

Do you ever stop to think, you fellow workers on whom the world depends for sustenance, how important a part of society you are?

Food is the chief concern of mankind; it is one of the fundamental elements without which humanity | cannot exist. Food is the foundation of life, and most of the working hours of the human race were occupied in obtaining this most important necessity.

Of all the workers engaged in industry today, with thorough organization the foodstuff workers hold perhaps the most strategic position. But, lacking such organization, a summary of wages, hours and conditions prevailing in the foodstuff industry reveals a lamentable condition. The men and women to whom the world looks for its food are one of the worst exploited and wretchedly conditioned groups in the whole world of industry.

As society has gone forward, step by step, the foodstuff industry has become more and more important. The number of workers employed has become larger and larger, and more profit has been piled up by those who control the food resources of the world; and the conditions prevailing among foodstuff workers employed have grown progressively worse until they are intolerable.

Bills of Fare Change

As mankind progressed from one stage of civilization to another, the food requirements of the race changed also. The crude edibles, consisting mostly of raw meats and roots, which formed the principal items on the bills of fare of our early ancestors, no longer suit or satisfy us. A great industry, with ramifications extending to all parts of the earth, is necessary to produce, distribute and preserve the materials required to keep up the food supply in the present stage of civilization. If the workers engaged in this great industry will realize their industrial importance, it can easily be seen by any of them who give the matter serious thought. They can demand more of the good things which pass daily thru their hands, instead of existing on the meager fare of slaves. One thing only is necessary or the foodstuff workers, and that is organization.

Organization was necessary in the quest of food, in the days when ferocious beasts were to be met and killed, that the tribe might eat; and today organization is just as imperative, if the food workers are to obtain their rightful share of the foodstuffs their labor provides. The masters of the foodstuff industry are fully as ferocious as the beasts of the jungle, and operate under the protection begotten of their unchallenged economic power. Organization is fully as necessary today as it was when all the tribe took the trail into the forest. They hunted the meal and Wwe are compelled to hunt a meal ticket. We must capture the jobs for today; jobs mean meal tickets, and industrial connection means life.

The Men Who Control

The men who control the gigantic packing houses, refrigerating plants, flour mills, canning factories, hotels and restaurants, are all organized. They present at all times a solid front to the demands of the workers employed in the distribution, production and preservation of foodstuffs.

The only method by which the workers employed in this industry can successfully combat the organization of the masters is to organize in the same way. The masters are organized along industrial and class lines, and the workers must employ the same methods. All of the men and women employed in the foodstuff industry must organize together in one union. No worker whom the boss employs can be considered unnecessary, and no union complete which leaves any of them out.

The Workers Divided

In the foodstuff industry, there are, perhaps, more different classifications of labor than in any other industry, and consequently, at present there are more different organizations represented. This is the position in which the masters of food like to see their workers, because they realize that division means defeat for the workers and domination for them. Craft unionism has made possible the defeat of the workers in their past struggles for higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions.

The principle of craft unionism whenever it makes a successful attempt, it only enables one group of workers to better itself at the expense of other groups, only in the end to suffer the punishment which it helped to inflict on the others. Craft unionism hopelessly divides the workers, and in such manner as enables the boss to defeat each group, as he selects. In the meat packing department of the foodstuff industry, the “Big Five” have proven conclusively that so long as the workers pin their hopes to the antiquated, obsolete craft form of organization, no concerted action can be taken; and that the chains of slavery can be bound more and more tightly around the passive bodies of the packing house workers.

Last winter the stockyard workers tried, not to gain better conditions, but merely to hold what they had, and the resulting strike was marked, as most craft union strikes are, by violence, treason and, finally, defeat.

Industry Centralizing

On countless occasions different groups of workers employed in restaurants, hotels, canning factories, and flour mills, have tried to fight the masters with the craft form of organization, and the results have usually been the same—defeat and submission to the terms of the boss. But the. signs of the times point to an era of new unionism in the foodstuff industry. This industry, like all others, is becoming more and more centralized. Every day the control is coming into fewer hands. This makes it easier for the workers engaged in the food industry to battle for their rights. It clarifies the issue, and enables the workers to see their common enemy in a manner not possible heretofore.

Again, no worker can fail to realize how impotent the craft unions have proved themselves to be, and the intelligent ones in these unions are looking around for a better weapon in the unceasing struggle with the masters of the foodstuff industry. The form of organization most suited to the needs of the foodstuff workers is the I.W.W. This organization is founded on solid working class principles, and admits every worker in industry to its membership. The I.W.W. does not ask, are you a butcher, cook, baker, or waiter? It only asks, are you engaged in the production, distribution or preservation of food? If you are, then you are eligible for membership in the Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union No. 460, of the I.W.W.

The I.W.W. realizes the fallacy of dividing the workers so that the boss may more easily defeat them, and it organizes every worker, whether he or she be employed in stockyards, refrigerating plant, bakery, canning factory, flour mill, hotel or restaurant, into one union, composed of all the workers engaged in the production, distribution and preservation of food. In this manner, when it becomes necessary for any of these workers to engage in strikes against the employers, all of the workers in the industry are involved, and any department or the entire industry can be closed down.

If the stockyard workers had been so organized during the recent strike, the refrigerator men, electricians, machinists, clerks, chauffeurs and other different crafts would not have remained at work when the butchers went out. The “Big Five” would have been the loser instead of the workers.

The I.W.W. believes that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” It recognizes no aristocracy of skill, will tolerate no lines of division, and realizes that only the solidarity of labor can wrest victory from the grasping hands of the capitalist class.

Foodstuff Workers! The I.W.W. represents your only hope. Too long have you attempted to fight the master of food with old style organizations, or none at all. Too long have you listened to the glibtongued labor fakers, or depended upon the good heartedness (?) of the masters. In the I.W.W. you will find no business agents to barter with the boss, and no officials to sell you out when victory is within your grasp. The I.W.W. cannot give you a ready made union; unions are not made that way, but the I.W.W. can furnish you with the idea, and can send organizers to help to get started. It can lend you the experience gained in a long and bitter struggle in all industries. It can show you how to avoid the mistakes commonly made by labor, and can give you valuable pointers in your struggle to form an organization that will be invincible.

All Power to the Workers

The I.W.W. is a rank and file organization. The officials, instead of dictating policies, are only allowed to take such action as the members instruct them, and they only stay in office for one year.

All the power lies in the hands of the members, as the I.W.W. believes in direct action, which means dealing directly with the boss, and no one not engaged in the particular department interested in a strike has anything to say regarding the calling of the strike or the settlement. If you wait for the officials of the I.W.W. to call off or settle a strike, you would have a long wait. The strike is yours to settle and call off, or to continue.

Foodstuff workers, this is the union you have been looking for; this is the weapon you need in your struggle to obtain your rightful share of the good things of life, which you work so hard to produce (for others).

Organize! Foodstuff Workers! Join the Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union No. 460, of the I.W.W. Join the only union which can help you change your miserable conditions. Join the union which not only wants more wages, but which wants to abolish the wage system and some fine morning the world will ask Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union No. 460, what they are going to have for breakfast.