The Wobblies

Celebrate International Workers Day with cinemas across America

"Bird and Shaffer not only have resurrected a slice of American history usually buried out of sight in the classrooms, but produced a spirited and exhilarating distillation of that pre-World War I period in 89 minutes."
- San Francisco Chronicle

Founded in Chicago in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changed the course of American history. This compelling documentary of the IWW (or “The Wobblies” as they were known) tells the story of workers in factories, sawmills, wheat fields, forests, mines, and on the docks as they organize and demand better wages, healthcare, overtime pay, and safer working conditions. In some respects, men and women, Black and white, skilled and unskilled workers joining a union and speaking their minds seems so long ago, but in other ways, the film mirrors today’s headlines, depicting a nation torn by corporate greed.

Filmmakers Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer weave history, archival film footage, interviews with former workers (now in their 80s and 90s), cartoons, original art, and classic Wobbly songs (many written by Joe Hill) to pay tribute to the legacy of these rebels who paved the way and risked their lives for many of the rights that we still have today.

2021 Library of Congress National Film Registry Inductee
4K Restoration by the Museum of Modern Art
(US / 1979 / Directed by)
Unrated / 1 hr 29 mins