Agricultural Workers Organization

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The Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO), later known as the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, was an organization of farm workers throughout the United States and Canada formed on April 15, 1915, in Kansas City. It was supported by, and a subsidiary organization of, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Although the IWW had advocated the abolition of the wage system as an ultimate goal since its own formation ten years earlier, the AWO's founding convention sought rather to address immediate needs, and championed a ten-hour work day, premium pay for overtime, a minimum wage, good food and bedding for workers.^[1] In 1917 the organization changed names to the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (AWIU) as part of a broader reorganization of IWW industrial unions.

As a member organization of the IWW, the AWO embraced a variety of tactics in order to organize workers. While the AWO resolved to prohibit street speaking and soap boxing – a common method by which the parent organization communicated its more radical message to workers – soapboxing was practiced by AWO delegates, and met with considerable success.^[1][2] The AWO developed the roving delegate system for member sign-up and dues collection, which is still used by the IWW. Within two years, the AWO had achieved a membership of a hundred thousand.^[3]