The event dominating headlines in the Industrial Worker in 1912 was the big textile worker strike that occurred in Lawrence, MA. Laborers in the mills were fed up with their working conditions and wages. Specifically, they took issue with a new law that shortened the workweek. Mill owners found a loophole in the law and made sure that they could pay the workers less because the employees worked fewer hours. This did not sit well with the workers or the IWW, so they began to strike. This movement grew and grew until in included thousands of workers throughout New England by the end of February. As the Industrial Worker noted week after week, multiple violent clashes between police, laborers, and average citizens occurred on a very regular basis. Lawrence was quickly becoming an unsafe place to live, so many families decided that it would be best to send their children out of town to stay with relatives and friends until the furor died down. This resulted in multiple chaotic confrontations between mobs of mothers and police officers at the railroad stations when children were dropped off.

A notable conflict arose between the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.) and the IWW during the Lawrence strike. The A.F.L. wanted to be the organization that officially spoke for the strike as a whole. However, the IWW had a significantly larger membership base within the strike, which, the Industrial Worker pointed out, would mean that putting the A.F.L. in charge would make no sense. These two organizations wished to see the strike become successful, but their differences lead to conflict.

Contempt on the part of the Industrial Worker for the A.F.L. also showed up in the publication’s coverage of the Los Angeles building trades’ strike. The Industrial Worker contended that the strike was not really called to improve the lives of workers and win better pay or reduced hours, but instead was an AFL ploy to undermine the IWW. A similar issue was raised in the cotton industry strike in New Bedford, MA.

In any case, the Lawrence strike had significant implications and influences. For instance, in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, mill owners were so terrified that their employees would be inspired by the Lawrence strikers that they preemptively called police in order to force laborers to attend work and break up any meetings like those conducted by the IWW. The strike’s influence reached all the way across the nation. Numerous IWW meetings were conducted all over the country in cities such as Oakland and Seattle, in order to show solidarity and collect funds to support the strikers. Mill workers in Grays Harbor, Hoquiam, and Tacoma, WA, were inspired by the Lawrence strikes and decided to stage a series of strikes of their own.

An interesting case that the Industrial Worker was diligent in reporting on was the incident involving Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti. Ettor and Giovannitti were key organizers of the Lawrence strike. This made them targets of the mill owners, who had institutional power and influence and used said powers to their advantage. The mill owners’ opportunity came when an IWW striker, Anna LoPizzo, was shot and killed. Ettor and Giovannitti were arrested, questioned, and charged as accomplices to murder, despite the fact that no substantial evidence had been gathered against them and that defense witnesses claimed that both men were giving speeches several miles away from the scene of the crime when the murder took place. The event inspired national outrage from IWW members and spurred numerous meetings and protests, including one in Seattle. Their trial began in September of 1912, and it lasted for two months. During closing comments, Giovannitti delivered a speech that the Industrial Worker hailed as brilliant. In late November, the jury acquitted them of all the charges.

With any major event, such as the Lawrence strike, the Industrial Worker would have loads of written commentary on each topic. In general, most of the second page of every issue was reserved for brief opinion pieces about each recent major event. In a similar vein, one notable feature of most of the articles about strikes and incidences involving strikes was a short paragraph consisting of a plea for funds. It would include a request for money and would list an address to which one could send the money. In addition, articles about strike meetings would mention that a collection had been taken up, and it would even list the exact amount collected, down to the last cent. It displayed a value for communal and collective action and aid, as well as a desire for the IWW to remain accountable and honest with the people it served.

The infamous Triangle Shirtwaist factory trial verdict was delivered early in 1912. The situation involved a fire that burned down a factory, killing 146 garment workers, mostly young women. During the workday, supervisors locked the front doors in order to prevent unauthorized breaks. On March 11, 1911, a fire started and spread throughout the entire building. The workers tried to leave the building, but couldn’t because the doors were locked. Nobody was present to unlock the doors, and the emergency escape facilities were poorly crafted. Those in charge at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were put on trial, and in early 1912, a jury found them not guilty. As an advocate for workers’ rights, the Industrial Worker was infuriated by all of this. This publication does not hesitate to label any deaths “on the job” as “murder,” and this case was no exception.

Many small-scale conflicts between laborers and authorities exploded during 1912. 2,500 longshoremen in Boston struck for better wages. Firefighters and coal workers at the University of Michigan went on strike for more pay, while the university attempted to replace them with student “scabs.” As usual, the Industrial Worker demonized these “scabs” and anyone else who tried to replace striking laborers. Coal miners in Colorado went on strike, but ended up successfully negotiating with the owners of struck mines. Workers in Brawley, CA, ran into trouble when authorities accused them of stealing a pig. In that case, arrests were made twice, but no charges were ever filed and the cases were all dropped. Construction workers in Kansas City, MO, Bismarck, ND, Milwaukee, WI, and Tacoma, WA, all simultaneously went on strike. Construction workers in White Salmon, WA, who were working on the Northwestern Electric Company’s power dam, went on strike under the IWW’s leadership. Lumber workers at the Lumber Company in Bovill, ID, struck in pursuit of higher pay. All of the piano and organ workers in New York City joined the IWW and subsequently went on strike. Freight handlers and receiving clerks in Chicago all went on strike for a 10 cents-per-day pay increase.

In Louisiana, workers from timber companies represented by the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association went on strike, only to be confronted by guns and arrests from their employer and the police; three died and twenty were wounded in that particular incident. The Industrial Worker claimed that other media outlets labeled that event as a riot, even though the strikers didn’t expect an attack like that to happen at all. This is a prime example of the Industrial Worker’s general contempt for mainstream media that promoted capitalistic values and qualities, a theme that came up in most of the stories about strikes, protests, meetings, and other events.

One particularly notable event happened when streetcar workers, mostly racial minorities, in Portland, OR, went on strike for many of the “usual” reasons (i.e. low pay, long hours), as well as the fact that the companies would frequently fire their workers in order to collect application fees from unemployed workers wanting to work for them. This particular strike event stood out to the Industrial Worker because the strikers specifically sought out the IWW’s help in managing the strike, as opposed to it happening the other way around.