On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: If I remember correctly (and I’ve forgotten my source), the IWW did not > permit individuals to engage in sabotage on their own; it had to be a > collective decision and carried out in the proper way. Such a principle > would _*seem*_, off hand, to indicate that the IWW also used the word in > the current popular sense. >
I tried looking at the existing organization's site for an answer, but found a confused jumble. The most current document ( http://www.iww.org/en/history/icons/sabotage) states that, "Despite what you may have heard, sabotage is *not* destruction of property or machines (and the IWW does *not* endorse or condone such actions), nor does the term originate from workers placing their wooden shoes or 'sabot' in the gears of machinery to prevent the machines' operations." Meanwhile the IWW's own historical materials, linked from that page, contradict both claims. Here are a couple of definitions: "Sabotage is the destruction of profits to gain a definite, revolutionary, economic end. It has many forms. It may mean the damaging of raw materials destined for a scab factory or shop. It may mean the spoiling of a finished product. It may mean the displacement of parts of machinery or the disarrangement of a whole machine where that machine is the one upon which the other machines are dependent for material. It may mean working slow. It may mean poor work. It may mean missending packages, giving overweight to customers, pointing out defects in goods, using the best of materials where the employer desires adulteration, and also the telling of trade secrets. In fact, it has as many variations as there are different lines of work." Sabotage: Its History, Philosophy & Function. Walker C. Smith, 1917. http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/WCSmith/sabotage "Sabotage means primarily: *the withdrawal of efficiency.* Sabotage means either to slacken up and interfere with the quantity, or to botch in your skill and interfere with the quality, of capitalist production or to give poor service. Sabotage is not physical violence, sabotage is an internal, industrial process. It is something that is fought out within the four walls of the shop. And these three forms of sabotage -- to affect the quality, the quantity and the service are aimed at affecting the profit of the employer. Sabotage is a means of striking at the employer's profit for the purpose of forcing him into granting certain conditions, even as workingmen strike for the same purpose of coercing him. It is simply another form of coercion." Sabotage. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 1916. http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Flynn/Sabotage -- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."
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