The IWW and Mexico

[Cult of Reason]

I have read that Ricardo Flores Magon was a member of the IWW, which has led me to wonder:

1. Was the IWW ever involved with Mexico to any significant extent?

2. Is the IWW involved at all with the workers' movement in Mexico now?

3. If the answer is no to either of the preceding questions, would someone please explain why?

Thankyou.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I know that the Magon brothers were attracted to anarchism after the IWW strike in Cananea, but that's about the extent of my knowledge.

[black magick hustla]

I have read that Ricardo Flores Magon was a member of the IWW, which has led me to wonder:

1. Was the IWW ever involved with Mexico to any significant extent?

2. Is the IWW involved at all with the workers' movement in Mexico now?

3. If the answer is no to either of the preceding questions, would someone please explain why?

Thankyou.


The IWW did have somewhat of a relationship to the Mexican labor Movement. In the mexican revolution, magonista militants and quite a few socialist labor party cadre and wobblies, bought a bunch of rifles with funds of the Socialist Party, and tried to take over a few cities in Mexico. They were able to take over Tijuana and parts of baja california. Unfortunately for them, things backfired for a few reasons, the two major ones were that they were a bunch of white gringos essentially proclaiming socialist revolution for a bunch of brown peasants, and second, they weren't able to stand against Madero's forces.

After the Mexican revolution, labor movement militants created "Casa del Obrero", which roughly transaltes to House of the Worker. A lot of anarchist workers would gather around in that building, and it was well known that a few wobblies would hang around that area.

[ComradeOm]

AFAIK the IWW, and other radical unions, never maintained more than a minimal presence in post-Revolution Mexico. This was largely due to the dominance enjoyed by the CROM union which was then favoured by the government and served as the de facto national union

[chicanorojo]

2. Is the IWW involved at all with the workers' movement in Mexico now?

3. If the answer is no to either of the preceding questions, would someone please explain why?


If by involved, you mean an active branch, then, based on the IWW web page, they do not have a branch or branches in Mexico.

As to why not? Probably one factor is that there are a good # of independent unions active in Mexico.

[IronColumn]

Also I believe the IWW later allied with the government against Zapata. Libcom has an interesting article by John Hart on Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico that details this.

[black magick hustla]

AFAIK the IWW, and other radical unions, never maintained more than a minimal presence in post-Revolution Mexico. This was largely due to the dominance enjoyed by the CROM union which was then favoured by the government and served as the de facto national union

They were small, but not terribly small. Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo, an anarcho-syndicalist union that was riooted with the petroleum workers, once had around 30k members.