interviews

Talking about the Venezuelan situation

M: What is Kämpa tillsammans?
KT: We call ourselves a writing collective, where we have discussions together and a collective signature. What we are occupied with is class struggle theory.

M: What made you start the group?

Anarchism in South Africa
An interview with Michael Schmidt of the ZACF
by Alternative Libertaire

Alternative Libertaire: Could you tell briefly in which conditions/context and how Zabalaza, and then the ZACF, were built?

Libcom.org is a constantly expanding online resource that seeks to promote working class self-organisation through publishing news, theoretical texts and historical articles. Site traffic has risen from 25-35,000 visits per month in 2005 to 110-170,000 now and there are now 2,600 active users.

What are the issues behind this strike?

Rasem Al Bayari, Deputy General Secretary of the PGFTU (Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions), an ITUC affiliate, knows that well: following the destruction of a PGFTU building in October 2006 and the firing of two rockets at his home in January, on 6 April Rasem Al Bayari was injured by masked men who attacked him while he was in a car with his family.

In this wide-ranging interview with IWW organizer Daniel Gross conducted by the UK-based Now or Never!, Gross discusses the innovative worker-controlled organizing model, known as solidarity unionism, that has made gains for Starbucks workers where the bureaucratic union model has failed.

The Anarchist Federation is growing in membership and involved in a range of campaigns including Defy ID. Its magazine ‘Organise!’ recently reached its 20th anniversary issue.

Freedom: Why did you join AF?

...
Freedom: You've done two previous festivals, how do you think this one will compare?

An interview with a former member of revolutionary UPS workers group Uprise! by libcom, based on a libcom questionnaire. Uprise! was active in 2002 and 2003.

Short text with a round-up of the French IWA section, the CNT's (1-200 members), activity. Based on a short interview during the IWA congress of 2006.

The text looks at the composition of foreign workers in Indian call centres and documents interviews with workers from international companies such as HP or Citibank which relocated call centre work to the industrial outskirts of Delhi.

Introduction

"Why I'm a wobbly" - Three members of the Industrial Workers of the World, from different political and working backgrounds, explain why they joined the IWW, and how they see their union.

First, perhaps you could say something about yourself and the organisation you are part of?

About the international free trade zones in Romania
There used to be six free trade zones in Romania, where foreign investors were supposed to invest in low tax paradises. Today only one zone remains
http://freezone.arad.ro.

About Solectron

So, who are you?
The proletarian formerly known as Funnywump.

Briefly, what was McDonald’s Workers Resistance?

For two years Mistress Venus was a professional dominatrix in central London. She’s also an anarchist communist. So, we at Organise! thought we’d take the opportunity to ask her a few questions about this.

This is the summary of an interview Prol-Position made end of November 2002 with a firefighter from Belfast who is also a representative of the FBU (Fire Brigade Union).

This was published by Wildcat in December 2003 but has only now been translated into English (for prol-position news #6, July 2006), and a short introduction added. Although it is a bit old, it still contains unique insights into the situation, hopes, difficulties and dynamics of the occupation process and many personal interviews.

Interviews can be a useful tool to aid publishing and media efforts. Think of them as an opportunity to get information you don't already know. It is a particularly useful way of relieving the pressure on people intensely involved in a particular struggle who don't have the time to report on their activities and perspectives.