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.
A group of radicals held a conference and their primary goals were to overthrow the wage system and get rid of capitalism which gave the IWW their platform.
These three founders include William D. Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, and Daniel De Leon who were all a part of the Socialist Party.
Eugene V. Debs was an activist in the Trade Union Movement and eventually became the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.
This conference led to the emergence of the Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) that focused on recruiting farmers in the Western United States and Canada to join one big union.
Harsh conditions included, lice infested camps, long hours, intense heat, and earnings of $2.50 a day.
To recruit members to the AWO, field delegates sometimes freight trains in and around harvest areas and demand to see a Red Card, proof of membership to the IWW, from all other riders.
By doing so, the AWO hoped to create an "800 mile picket line" along the wheat belt ensuring the IWW controlled all harvest jobs.
Field delegates had direct contact with other agricultural workers and were able to experience the working conditions at the field level; direct communication with both workers and ranch foremen, including farmers, allowed for negotiation of wages and delegates would not accept jobs that paid under the union scale of $3 per day.
The Wobbly press's attempted to build solidarity by drawing on the similar working conditions among white, Asian, Hispanic, and African American workers.
Ralph Durst and his brother, owners of a large farm and ranch, refused to address the complaints of their agricultural workers who presented a list of demands to them.
In response to their refusal and firing of the leading IWW members, Wobblies met that same night and included speakers who spoke in German, Greek, Italian, Arabic, and Spanish to the crowd in order to gain the most supporters among the group of workers.
[9] The decline of the Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (AWIU) the mid 1920s was also influenced by the inability to adapt to the rapidly changing demographics of farmworkers in the West Coast.
"Nearly $85,000 of the money the AWIU had raised in 1922 [$135,055 total] went to support strikes in Oregon and California; and harvesters had also provided defense funds for Wobblies in Centralia, Washington, and made a large donation to the IWW's Work People's College in Duluth, Minnesota"(Sellars).