Union bugs indicate that printed matter was printed in a unionized workplace.

The WIP print bug is inspired by the print bug for The Detroit Printing Co-Op, a radical print shop that operated from 1970-80. Zach Frazier designed the WIP print bug.

WIP is not a union shop. We are all volunteer run. If you see our print bug on a publication, it simply communicates the publication was created with a communal resource. Use of the WIP print bug does not indicate that WIP endorses the content of a publication.

Some of the print shops that inspire WIP, like the Iowa City Women’s Press, created groundbreaking printed matter that can only be linked to their print shop through careful primary source research (and sometimes, not even then). We want to make it easier for the archivists of the future to figure out what was produced on WIP’s equipment.

If you want to support a local union print shop, we recommend Smart Set in Minneapolis, which is a member of the Communication Workers of America.