anyone...?
london strike on 16 7th (tommorrow and thursday)
I've only just seen this. I was on strike those days, but just in my Borough. I did a leaflet for agency workers in my branch as well. I sent it around and some other people in the UK as well. What did you get down on yours? We could compare notes and try to get something to use in future as well. I'll look up the text of my one
Did you just distro it during the strike or did you do it beforehand as well? What response did you get?
I didn't see any of the SolFed or IWW lot on the march, did any of you turn up in the end?
the wobbly leaflet wasn't really about the strike at all. it was targeted at jobseekers at the Job Centre, where most end up with agency jobs. this is especially true in hackney, apparently.
anyway, there were two leaflets. one was a 'know your rights' type of thing, with some basic information regarding pay, hours, rest periods, union membership, and so on. the other was a bit more 'political', going through a general critique of the agency system (institutionalising low wages/skills, easy to get sacked, minimal H&S and training, combatting TUs, etc.), and going on to argue that grassroots workplace organisation is the only way we can address these problems. of course, we tried to make them as un-jargony as possible, but the latter leaflet really was mostly giving an IWW 'line' (if there is such a thing).
we handed both out to everyone who went into the JC, and people were generally quite receptive, especially to the rights leaflet. it's something we're going to carry on doing i think.
it does sound strange when you put it that way, but it was only incidental that the strike was on. and we went down to the rally in hackney afterwards. it just happened that it was the only weekday that a couple of us were free and able to do it.
leafleted a couple of times since then, mind.
ftony wrote:
and we went down to the rally in hackney afterwards.
and while i was waiting an hour for Tacks to get his arse in gear, i joined the picket line and chatted to the workers.
i may be interpreting your point badly, but i don't see what you mean about 'intervening'. i'm not a big fan of proselytising. aside from me and Tacks, the rest of London wobs were otherwise engaged (e.g. working), or didn't respond to emails on the subject.
ftony: given we handed out http://libcom.org/library/tea-break-july-2008 on the day you could probably guess that's what Steven. meant about intervening (although he was actually on strike for the two days, so was intervening in his own strike technically).
no i don't think tea break was proselytising - it sounded like Steven was suggesting the IWW make some sort of an intervention as a union that has very little to do with the strike. that sounded a bit like proselytising, so i was saying it for the record.
re. 'relevance' - that's a tricky term - presumably you mean it in terms of timing, no? i don't think there is anything inherently bad about doing something else as well as supporting a strike on the day a strike happens. i'm sure plenty of activists and organisers for other unions, and plenty of other kinds of campaigners were doing something other than supporting the strike on the days it was happening. so there's nothing wrong with doing something else mildly useful at the same time as a strike is happening provided you're not doing something that will involve scabbing or weakening that strike.
I'm not saying there's anything inherently bad about doing something else, of course not. The strike however was obviously the most important thing, and most immediate thing for workers on the day it was happening, so it just seems a bit surprising that you did something else which could have been done any time.
Fair enough if the IWW hadn't sorted anything out to intervene in the strike, I know we meant to e-mail you about tea break, I'm not sure if we did though. Did we? We did the other groups... we could have done with a hand with distribution on the demonstration, but hey maybe next time.
Steven. wrote:
I'm not saying there's anything inherently bad about doing something else, of course not. The strike however was obviously the most important thing, and most immediate thing for workers on the day it was happening, so it just seems a bit surprising that you did something else which could have been done any time.Fair enough if the IWW hadn't sorted anything out to intervene in the strike, I know we meant to e-mail you about tea break, I'm not sure if we did though. Did we? We did the other groups... we could have done with a hand with distribution on the demonstration, but hey maybe next time.
aye i think we did receive the email. i know what you mean about the strike being the most important thing on the day, and we did support it. in fact i know a couple of wobblies who aren't very active in the actual IWW did a lot of work building for the strike in the council where they work. but hopefully next time there'll be more hands on deck and more people able to do something. as i say, tacks and i did go along to support the strike (T more than me - he was there on the first day).
Over the next 2 days with the IWW I'll be: going to both rallies at hackney town hall, going on wednesdays march and rally in euston, flyering agency workers with the new material we did for them, doing some shelves for LCAP's new office*, and arranging a solidarity picket of the Polish embassy for Workers Initiative.
who's doing what? solfed wanna march with iww or summat?
*not related to the strike but you could hold the spirit level for me