William Ernst Trautmann (July 1, 1869 – November 18, 1940) was an American trade unionist who was the founding general-secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and one of six people who initially laid plans for the organization in 1904.

After completing a brewing apprenticeship in Poland, he worked as a masterbrewer in Germany before being expelled for labor activities under Bismark's anti-socialist laws.

In 1913, Trautmann joined the so-called yellow IWW created by the Socialist Labor Party, which later became the Workers' International Industrial Union (WIIU), as a "full-time propagandist.

"[1] In 1922, Trautmann published a novel, Riot, drawing on his experiences as an IWW activist during the Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909 in McKees Rocks (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

Eventually the factory operators met the workers' demands and Trautmann achieved his first labor victory.

In 1906 Trautmann, and his allies Vincent St. John, and Daniel DeLeon found themselves at odds with the President of the IWW, Charles Sherman.

Trautmann and his allies were a proponent of "direct action", the use of strikes and sabotage to achieve the aims of the union.

[4] Trautmann wrote a historical novel entitled Riot that was based on his experiences organizing the McKees Rocks strike.

He abandoned radical politics and wrote America's Dilemma in which he said, "Millions of toilers are today agreed that not capitalism, not the employers of labor as a class, are the enemies of the workers so much as those who, claiming to spring from the ranks of the proletariat, have become the apostles of corruption, the promoters of crime, the fomentors of chaos and destruction."

He instead promoted peaceful labor reform, eventually ending up in Los Angeles where he worked on his autobiography and a New Deal highway project until his death in 1940.