The October 2006 issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Industrial Worker #1688 (October 2006)
Contents include:
- Northwest flight attendants strike barred by Joshua Devries
- Starbucks workers joining IWW in global fight for labor rights
- Making work safer with direct action by Daniel Gross & Joe Tessone
- Readers' soapbox
- Farewell, Fellow Worker: Steve Lindenmeyer
- Farewell, Fellow Worker: Jenny (Lahti) Velsek
- East End Food Co-op workers lose close NLRB election
- Organizing today for the One Big Union tomorrow by Dean Dempsey
- Boston GMB marches to end firing of Harvard custodian by Mark Wolff
- The storms that a resolution can cause: Istael, unions & democratic debate by Marc B. Young
- Skypecasts: great new tool for union meetings online by Eric Lee
- Bradford IWWs stand up for fired Starbucks unionists by Peter Moore
- IWW assembly calls for Organizing Department
- 100 Wobblies and supporters rally for Shattuck workers by Dean Dempsey
- The right to organize in education
- What is the value of a worker's life? by Arthur J. Miller
- Are we not slaves? by Jon Bekken
- Poetry can be a class act by Gary Cox
- March to the left by Dorice Mcdaniels
- Harvey slays the time-study monster by J. Pierce
- IWW victory for taxi drivers at LA airport by Ernesto Nevarez
- Working Families Party wins Massachusetts ballot line by Mark Wolff
- World labor solidarity
For paper subscription info, please visit the IW page at iww.org
Attachments
Farewell, Fellow Worker: Jenny (Lahti) Velsek
Believe this is the wedding picture of Jenny and Charles Velsek in 1943, West Allis, Milwaukee Co., WI.
An obituary of Jenny (Lahti) Velsek, who was closely associated with the IWW for many years.
Jenny (Lahti) Velsek, 93, passed away April 18 in a nursing home at Tucson, Arizona. She was born March 4, 1913, at Eagle River, Wisconsin, the fifth of seven surviving children of Finnish immigrant parents.
Her parents were part of the Finnish- American labor movement, active with the Finnish clubs associated with the Industrial Workers of the World. Jenny described her father as an avid reader of Industrialisti, the Finnish-language IWW newspaper.
As a young woman, Jenny attended classes at Tyovaen Opisto (Work Peoples College), the Finnish IWW school for labor activists near Duluth.
Most of her life she lived in Chicago. She was married to Charles Velsek, secretary of the Czech branch of the IWW, who died in 1979. Jenny then became a companion to anold friend, Fred Thompson, whose Finnish- American wife Aino had recently passed away. Thompson was a well-known figure in IWW history as an organizer, labor historian and educator, and as an editor and writer. In the 1930s, he had been a director and teacher at Work Peoples College, after classes at that institution began to be conducted in English.
After Fred Thompson died in 1987 at age 87, Jenny moved to Springfield, Missouri, to be near a niece. Later she moved to Tucson where she had a brother and his family, and where she lived for the remainder of her life.
Comments
Wasn't sure if the pic I included with this obit actually portrayed the two. But just found a picture of Jenny, and although still not absolutely sure...it looks like her
https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/11620
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