Ben Fletcher and the IWW Dockers of Philadelphia

Ben Fletcher and the IWW Dockers struck in Philadelphia on May 13, 1913. 10,000 Wobblies participated. They were protesting poor wages and dangerous working conditions. By May 28, they had won a ten-hour workday and time-and-a-half pay for overtime. However, the strike also launched one of the most successful anti-racist, anti-capitalist unions in the country: IWW Local 8.

IWW Organizing in Philadelphia

In 1913, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.

Ben Fletcher

Fletcher was born in Philly in 1890. He joined the Wobblies (IWW) in 1912, became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the union maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. After the 1913 strike, Fletcher traveled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color. In 1918, the state arrested him, sentencing him to ten years for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years.