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Even Americans familiar with labor history might be surprised by the slogan of the Congress of South African Trade Unions: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” More commonly associated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the motto was likely brought to South Africa by IWW members (“Wobblies”) shortly after the revolutionary union’s founding in 1905.

That the IWW was global enough to spread its phraseology across the Atlantic Ocean belies its popular conception, which tends to focus exclusively on the union’s organizing in the US. But the IWW’s revolutionary ideals found purchase among workers throughout the world, eventually gaining members in at least twenty countries on all six of the inhabited continents.

The IWW inspired activists in the Ghadr movement, which sought Indian independence from the British Empire. Its members interacted with Chinese republican revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen and the anarchists of the Partido Liberal Mexicano as well as its hero, Emiliano Zapata. Its ranks included everyone from socialist tribune Eugene Debs to Ghadr movement leader Pandurang Khankhoje to border-hopping migrant laborers in the American Southwest.

A new anthology, Wobblies of the World, explores the IWW’s rich international history for the first time. I recently spoke with coeditor Peter Cole about how the IWW fits into global labor history, what attracted disparate workers to the Wobblies, and why this aspect of the IWW has been overlooked for so long. Our discussion has been edited for clarity and brevity.