In the meantime, however, we need to develop strategies that both prefigure this utopia AND counteract the day to day drudgery of contemporary wage-slavery. The IWW believes that direct action in the workplace is the key to achieving both these goals. The best-known form of direct action is the strike, in which workers simply walk off their jobs and refuse to produce profits for the boss until they get what they want. The bosses, with their large financial reserves, are better able to withstand a long drawn-out strike than the workers. In many cases, court injuctions will freeze or confiscate the union's strike funds.
Workers are far more effective when they take direct action while still on the job.
By deliberately reducing the boss' profits while continuing to collect wages, you can cripple the boss without giving some scab the opportunity to take your job. Direct action, by definition, means those tactics workers can undertake themselves, without the help of government agencies, union bureaucrats, or high-priced lawyers. Running to the Industrial Relations Commission for help may be appropriate in some cases, but it is NOT a form of direct action. What follows are some of the most popular forms of direct action that workers have used to get what they wanted. Yet nearly every one of these tactics is, technically speaking, illegal.