Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is invoked as a feared possibility rather than shown through an organized campaign. Its brief appearances connect labor unrest to the ranch’s seasonal workforce and expose the owners’ concern that workers might challenge the existing order.

Presence in the Narrative

The organization is not represented through named members, meetings, or a described program. During a conversation at the governor’s dinner, the governor says ranch work cannot have regular hours and expresses dread that the hands might become involved with unions. Asked whether that change is likely, he answers that it is impossible to tell and refers to the wobblies as people who defy authority. The exchange establishes the IWW’s presence chiefly as a subject of employer apprehension.

Ranch Labor and Seasonal Work

That apprehension sits within a work system organized around the haying season. Phil oversees the operation: he inspects and repairs mowing equipment, arranges irrigation, monitors the hay, and sets the start of haying for as soon as possible after the Fourth of July. George, by contrast, handles the books and business dealings. Their division of responsibility shows managerial authority concentrated in the brothers while hired hands perform the seasonal labor.

The work is not presented as effortless or uniform. Mowing-machine operators use equipment whose lowered cutter bars can cause severe accidents, and they sharpen the bars after work. Their skill and exposure to danger bring extra pay and a degree of deference, including newer tents and first choice of the meat. These details give the governor’s remarks a material context: ranch hands have distinct responsibilities and leverage associated with dangerous work, even as the narrative does not show them organizing collectively.

The Meaning of Employer Fear

The governor’s reference to unions turns uncertainty about labor relations into a warning about defiance. The novel offers no account of what the IWW itself does in the valley, so the governor’s characterization cannot stand as an objective description of the organization. It does, however, reveal how the prospect of collective action is perceived from the position of ranch authority.

The seasonal workforce also includes men who arrive at the ranch after the Independence Day celebrations and begin the demanding stretch of haying. The narrative notes that some have been arrested as vagrants, including men associated with what authorities regard as radical labor beliefs. This passing detail links suspicion of labor politics with the policing of mobile workers, without identifying any individual as an IWW organizer or establishing a specific union action.

Narrative Significance and Limits

The IWW functions as a political presence at the edge of the story: it is named through the fears and dismissive language of those in power, while the workers’ conditions are conveyed through their tasks, dangers, pay, and seasonal movement. The contrast makes labor conflict visible without turning the organization into a developed plotline. The evidence supports an account of anti-union anxiety and the labor conditions surrounding it, but not a fuller description of the IWW’s local membership, activity, or internal organization.