Talk:Arturo Giovannitti

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This is a comment about a recent change that someone made to this article.

Categorizing Giovannitti (or anyone else) as a leader of the IWW is somewhat problematic. The IWW was (and is) a rank and file union. In 1906 the early day Wobblies abolished the office of President of the union, after only one year of existence, to emphasize that very fact.

Certainly, there are people who some could point to as "leaders". But where do you draw the line?

Whenever the authorities confronted a group of IWW members and asked to speak with the leaders of the group, they shouted in unison, "we are all leaders!" This practice is documented in strike after strike, and it continues to this day.

The category IWW leaders has been pretty muddled, and has included individuals that i certainly don't recognize as leaders. On the other hand, in a book that we published about an IWW strike in 1927, i included this newspaper excerpt:

The Denver Morning Post had noted about the pickets at Columbine,

"No warrants have been sworn out for leaders of the picketing parties today, according to authorities, because of the reason that there appear to be no leaders."

This was a common theme with newspaper reporting on the IWW. Several sections of the book (Slaughter in Serene: the Columbine Coal Strike Reader) in which this excerpt appears detail how the IWW made decisions by committees, and encouraged working people to step forward and assume leadership roles.

I don't mind if some individuals are categorized as IWW leaders, for certainly there were some individuals who were quite prominent. But taking them out of the IWW category means that they are being removed from a category where they (also) belong, and a lot folks using the category feature won't see the links to their articles, in my view. That's because all other leaders of the IWW are in the general IWW category.

And in the particular case of Giovannitti, i believe (during the Lawrence strike, which was his heyday with the Wobblies) that he is more accurately described as one of the organizers. Even Bill Haywood, indisputably one of the leaders of the union, had the titles general secretary-treasurer, and general organizer. There are no presidents, vice-presidents, "chairs", etc. in the entire organization.

If someone cares to argue for a different categorization arrangement, that's fine, i'll listen. But for now, it is best to stay consistent, with one categorization philosophy. The recent change here breaks the present arrangement for the IWW category. Richard Myers 01:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the leaders category can be renamed to "members" (though I worry about the precedent that sets for other unions), but putting individuals in the general category is non-standard and looks sloppy imo. Please note that including people in both a category and its parent is a breach of the guidelines on categorisation. CalJW 01:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure exactly what you mean with the statement, "putting individuals in the general category is non-standard..."

I accept that there is a problem, if guidelines are breached. I have wondered if just deleting the leadership category wouldn't be easier. But maybe changing the title of the leadership category to something like "organizers and prominent members" might be a solution.

The problem is, there are soooo many who could be called leaders, according to IWW philosophy (and as noted in newspaper reports.) Yet most of these were leaders for one particular action, so they may deserve an article, but how to answer whether they are leaders of the union becomes quite problematic, in my view.

Thanks for the response. Richard Myers 02:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

As it turns out, your statement that "including people in both a category and its parent is a breach of the guidelines on categorisation" is not exactly correct. The actual guidelines state, "there are occasions when this guideline can and should be ignored." The example is comparable to someone being both a union member, and a union leader. If there are two categories, and they fit into both categories, then clearly they belong in both. Wikipedia:Categorization — Richard Myers 16:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)