THE IWW WELCOMES ALL WORKERS
The IWW was the first union to treat all workers equally reguardless of their ethnic ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability. Every working person who earns their living with their hands or their mind is welcome in the IWW. Only BOSSES (persons with the power to hire and fire, who make money off the toil of others) are excluded from membership. The IWW is organized from people from all types of business, industry, or services; even those the AFL - CIO trade unions think are too small or unimportant to organize. In the modern economy, with its small work places, minimum wage jobs, and focus on services, the IWW approach of organizing by industry is the ideal way to insure that all workers in janitorial, parking, restaurant, retail, construction, or similar industries have the same contract and can't be fired and replaced by non - union workers.

THE IWW IS TRULY DEMOCRATIC
The IWW is the most democratic union in America. Each work place is organized by its workers who make all the decisions and have complete autonomy from any national organizational structure. All locals are organized by industry so taht no IWW union will compete with another. We believe an injury to one is an injury to all and that unions need to stick together when one local is in a fight. All IWW locals are organized internationally as a federation. Each sends recallable delegates to national meetings which advocate the interests of their local and report back to them on activities of any coordinating meetings. The IWW does not believe in professional union leaders who may be tempted by bosses to sell out, compromise, or be corrupted. We believe that the best protection against racketeering, or back room deals with bosses, is for the workers themselves to be in charge. For over 100 years union leaders have eventually sold out to those who elected them. We want to avoid this mistake.

DIRECT ACTION...
The IWW believes in using direct action to accomplish its goals. When there are labor laws to protect workers' rights, we will use the law to prosecute bosses who violate. Where there is injustice, we will use whistle blowing, pickets, strikes, sick outs, work slowdowns, monkey wrenching, and other tactics to punish the vosses in their pocket books. When the bosses try to turn the government against us with court orders and police harassment, we will defy them. If the bosses use violence, we will resist them! The IWW does not advocate violence. Violence is the last resort of cowards, bosses and police states who are losing control. Our response is to break their resolve by not being intimidated. Our strength is in our numbers, our solidarity with each other, and our resolve to protect our rights as honest as hard working people.

...NOT POLITICAL ACTION
The IWW does not support politicians or political parties because they are always allied with bosses. People with money realize that they have to buy protection from the government if they want to stay in charge. They do this with political campaign contributions, industry groups (corporate alliances) with full time professional lobbyists, and an army of lawyers that know how to work the professional bureaucracy and massage the rules and regulations to work for them. For over 100 years Labor Party, Socialist, Social Democrat, Democrat, Communist, or Green politicians who claimed to be friends of the Labor turned against the workers once they got a taste for the money and power of the government. Other political parties openly side withcorporations against workers! The government has carefully crafted their interpretation of the Bill of Rights to give civil rights to corporations, to protect ciorporate executives and stockholders from legal liability for the actions of the corporation, and to deny workers the right to free speech, assembly, search and seizure protection, due process, excessive bail protection, etc. when it threatens the economic ambitions of their employers.

ANTI MILITARISM
The IWW believes that wars are fought in order to make rich people richer and weaken the power of workers and ideas like patriotism are a smokescreen exploited by bosses to trick us into cooperating. Multinational corporations encourage governments to go to war to help them exploit workers, control natural resources, and monopolize food production in other countries. Wars force the workers of one country to kill the workers of another country and to die to promote the economic ambitions of corporations and bosses which watch from the sidelines. The IWW believes that unions should exist to improve the lives of the workers they represent and not help to kill off other workers so that bosses can get richer.

PRO ENVIRONMENT
The IWW believes that labor must forge strong ties to the community to fight the exploitation of workers and their families by businesses which degrade our environment. Historically, working people have paid the greatest price for the destruction of the environment caused by the same bosses and stockholders who exploit their labor. When bosses pollute, landfill, and develop they don't just reduce a cost to them, they force it on the rest of us who have to live in that environment. Tainted food, slumlord housing, exposure to toxic chemicals, hazardous consumer products, and on the job toxin and hazard exposure are all created by bosses who place their profits before the welfare of people. The IWW believes that we cannot rely on government regulations when the bosses are the ones writing the regulations. The militancy we bring to helping our fellow workers on the job is the only way to protect our communities and the world in which we live.

FIRE YOUR BOSS!
The IWW believes that the only antidote to wage slavery is the abolition of the wage slave system itself. By abolition of the wage system we mean that the workers themselves should own the workplace, operate it democratically, and share the benefits from all they produce. One day, unions will be so powerful that we can force the bosses to cede control of the workplace to those who do the work.
Historically, employee owned workplaces have been able to turn out better product at a lower cost with a greater return to their workers than their capitalist counterparts. This is because those who do the work are free to put their ideas into motion on how to make a better product and don't have to share the benefits of their labor with bosses and stockholders who produce nothing. People who work in groups and exchange knowledge solve problems easier than those who work in highly regimented workplaces or rigid bureaucracies. People who work for themselves are more motivated to do the best possible work than they are when they are paid only a fraction of the value of the work that they do and their boss takes credit for all their hard work.
Once workers at other workplaces see how good employee owned shops have it, thei will want to know how they can join up. The goal of the IWW is for all workers to be unionized and united under a single labor federation that will be able to protect workers from the underhand tactics of bosses, politicians, and organized crime who cooperate to maximize their power and profits at the expense of labor.