IWW cleaners at John Lewis going on strike
Submitted by Felix Frost on Jul 10 2012 15:46
The independent union the Industrial Workers of the World has today served notice for strike action of cleaners at the John Lewis Partnership’s flagship Oxford Street store. This is the first strike in the history of the Partnership only recently hailed by Deputy Minister Nick Clegg as a model for the British economy.
The campaign of industrial action will commence on Friday 13th July 2012. If a settlement is not reached the IWW has made clear it will announce further strikes in July and August, including through the Olympic period.
Holland & Barrett quit workfare after direct action
Submitted by Jim Clarke on Jul 7 2012 18:15
Campaigners are claiming a major scalp in the fight against workfare after retailer Holland & Barrett announced they were pulling out of the scheme.
On hearing the news, Brighton Solidarity Federation tweeted "we've won an important battle against workfare, but the war is far from over." The announcement came just 24 hours before a planned national week of action against workfare organised by the Boycott Workfare Network.
Week of Action Against Workfare
Submitted by martinh on Jul 5 2012 23:54
SLSF Press release on week of action against workfare
FIGHTING AGAINST WORKFARE
South London Solidarity Federation will be joining a week of action against Holland and Barrett's involvement in workfare from 7th to 14th July. The week will see stores picketed all over the country and SLSF are calling protests outside several South London branches of the multinational-owned store.
The problem with the Pay Up campaign
Submitted by Phil on Jun 19 2012 20:45
On the back of a demonstration at Sainsbury's headquarters, Pay Up has recently emerged as the latest UK Uncut-style activist campaign. Its aim is to highlight the problem of "in work poverty" and push for a living wage - starting with Sainsbury's. As someone whose first experience of workplace struggle was in Sainsbury's, this immediately caught my attention. So I decided to have a closer look at the campaign, and its pitfalls.
According to its website, Pay Up is "a national network built on the model of UK Uncut." In essence, this means using protests and street theatre directed against high street chains in order to get its message across. It also appears to mean that it is a structureless entity, with no clue given to exactly who is behind it or how decisions are made.
Palermo's workers strike
Submitted by andr00 on Jun 4 2012 23:50
The people who make our frozen pizzas are on strike.
Beginning on Friday, June 1st, 2012, approximately 120 workers at Palermo's, a frozen pizza factory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, went on strike demanding that their union, the Palermo's Workers Union, be recognized so that they can obtain higher wages and benefits. At 8 am.
Even my dreams these days have work-related scenes
Submitted by Recomposition on Apr 17 2012 06:00
More on our series on work, sleep and dreams. This one features Lou Rinaldi describing a nightmare and how it's his subconscious taking the very real alienation he feels at work and running with it.
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Reflections on dream baking and sleep deprivation
Submitted by Recomposition on Apr 15 2012 21:28
An account of working without much sleep and the dreams associated with this.
It is raining out side, but not too hard that I can’t ride my bike. I turn away from the front door and walk towards my room to find my rain gear. Of course this extra 5 minutes of getting all these extra layers on, means I will be 5 minutes late for work. I am tired, I have a sleep headache and the idea of being late for work, makes it worse.
Coping with clopening: retail worker’s most dreaded shift
Submitted by Recomposition on Apr 11 2012 23:19
Our friend Liberté Locke writes about what it’s like to work a ‘clopen’ in retail, to close the store late at night and get up early the next morning to open the store. Liberte’s story is the first in a series of stories we’re going to be running about work, sleep, and dreams. In their own way each of these stories gets at an important part of life under capitalism. Capitalists make their money by making us make products and perform services that the capitalists own. They don’t pay us the full value of what we add to those products and services. That’s key to capitalists’ profits. This is a kind of robbery. But there’s another kind of robbery...
I drag my broken jittery body home through the maze of late night construction New York City subways. I finally reach my quiet apartment where the only ones up are our three cats screaming for food and persistently walking just where I’m trying to walk. Tonight I manage to not step on them but usually, in this state, I can’t help it. I apologize with head-pettings and catnip.
Burp! Pepsi vs Coke (Documentary)
Submitted by working class s... on Apr 6 2012 16:20
Burp! Pepsi Vs Coke (1984) in the Ice Cold War traces the history of these brands against the backdrop of global politics
The second world war was the perfect vehicle for Coca-Cola distribution (including to the Nazis), bottling plants on frontlines paid for by the US war department. Nixon got Kremlin supremo, Khrushchev, to pose drinking Pepsi, which became the first US product made in the Soviet Union. In 1949, Mao kicked Coca-Cola out of China. President Carter got it back in 1978.
India: workplace resistance increases
Submitted by working class s... on Apr 4 2012 21:43
The labour movement in India is still under the control of bureaucratic leaders and political groups. However, as shown by a strike last year, among the workers of the country is gradually spreading the idea of self-organization and sovereign general assembly.
Up to 100 million workers were involved in a one-day strike in India on February 28. Strike, which affected a number of branches across the country, has been named one of the biggest strikes ever taken place in the world. It was announced 11 trade union centres (they first worked together since the declaration of independence) and 5000 smaller unions.
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