European syndicalists were to carry out a series of actions Nov.4 to protest attacks on the working class throughout Europe. A joint leaflet and poster on the theme *Solidarity Against Social Exclusion* were distributed across Europe, with space for local organizations to add local info.

The Nov.4 action was decided at a European syndicalist conference at Osstersund hosted by SAC (Swedish Workers Central-organization). Conferees agreed that our movement must define what we want and don't want, and represent our visions as an alternative to the compromises of the gutless mainstream unions.

The conference was held along with SAC's 25TH Congress. Independent unions participating were Russia's KAS (Anarcho-Syndicalist Fed.); Regional Trade Union Assoc. of Lithuania; Spain's CGT (Gen. Confed. of Workers); LAB-Basque; France's CGT-Corr; Portugal's A Bathalia; Norway's Lonnsslaven; Italy's UNI-COBAS; and SAT (esperantistas).

I was able to travel to Sweden to attend Anarkistisk Massa and the SAC Congress. The 3- day Anarchist Fair outside Gothenburg was a marvel of organization. A soccer field was turned into a small village through volunteer labor. A huge circus tent provided space for tables, including a bar and music stage. Smaller tents
housed debates, speeches, eating and meetings.

Numerous reports covered the broad range of political and cultural concerns. Discussions on workplace organizing, developing alternative economy and culture, anti-nuke work, feminism, anti-fascist organizing, along with lots of music were going on from 10 a.m. to midnight. My talk on the IWW drew about 60
people.

Participants addressed questions: how do we deal with the crisis presented by capitalists; how do we reach a range of people; what does outrage, vision and culture have to do with media. One participant, a leftist journalist, burned his leftist bridges by publishing an attack on anarchists in the national daily he works
for. Taking note of the controversies around feminism and separate space for women, this journalist sought to portray the diverse group of Swedish anarchists as anti-free thinking, anti-free speech and dogmatic.

Evert Ljusberg, an anarchist singer and story teller who is popular in Sweden, performed on the last day. Evert is Sweden's Utah Phillips, and the crowd loved him. Saturday night about 1 a.m., Stockholm's Mollys took the stage and cranked everyone up with their unique Icelandic-Irish-Swedish-Ska rock. This band named for the Molly Macquires is irresistably danceable.

An anarchist from Texas joined me for the pilgimage to the boyhood home of Joel Haaglund, better known as Joe Hill. The building is now maintained by SAC as a museum with Hill memorabilia. Most of the space is used as SAC offices while a garden provides open air meeting space.

The talk on the condition of unions in America was attended by students and workers. I demonstrated the foolish American rightwing metaphor, that individuals should "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Doing that meant I had to fall on my ass, folks laughed and a reporter with camera requested an instant replay.

The SAC Congress was held in Osstersund, a town in the center of the country with 3 military bases, a university and a large lake with a legendary Loch Ness type monster. On Saturday we marched
to the town square; black and red flags and boisterous singing syndicalists took over the sunny summer streets.

I was honored to be the international guest invited by SAC to address the public meeting, which opened and closed with music by Billy Shamrock. Mattias Gardell of the SAC International Dept. spoke on the historic important role of international solidarity from IWW and other unions in launching the Swedish syndicalist
union.

Many delegates from several countries praised the Industrial Worker newspaper, saying they reprint articles from it. The_Wage Slave World News_ didn't always make sense to Swedes and Russians, but they praised the IWW for using humor.

We have sisters and brothers who appreciate the IWW, in Sweden and elsewhere. Folks who want to build a libertarian socialist world where working folks, not capitalists, are in charge. Small steps of informal solidarity help along the road to revolution in our life times.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (December 1994)
Taken from spunk,org

Wobblies in Wales

The IWW was invited to send delegates to what was called a "Peoples Parliament" at the former Welsh Parliament at Owain Glyndwr House, Machynlleth, Dyfed. Bob Mander went as our delegate on 16 September, armed with a poster and some IWW leaflets.
About 40 people turned up representing various left wing organisations throughout Wales. The speakers on the platform included a Scottish Nationalist, a campaigner against open cast mining, and a campaigner against water privatisation. The meeting was chaired by a member of Faner Goch (Welsh Socialists) and bilingual translation facilities were provided. There were many Welsh nationalists in attendance, some seeking a Welsh Assembly with the United Kingdom and others seeking total independence.

After the official speakers the meeting was thrown open for discussion. A green anarchist gave a very good speech more or less saying "Why delegate to politicians what you have the ability to do for yourselves" and advocated direct action.

Bob spoke on behalf of the IWW:

"Bob Mander, delegated on behalf of the Aberystwyth IWW,

"Comrades, the evils the speakers have described are the evils of capitalism. That is the enemy we must eradicate. You believe that you can do this through the medium of a Welsh Parliament, but I would warn you that if you are granted a Welsh Parliament, it will only be because the ruling class see it as an expedient that in no way threatens the underlying social system.

"In considering a Welsh Parliament you must take into account the nature of so-called representative government and the corrupting nature of power, for you will be bringing into being a mechanism whereby every political opportunist and con man will be enabled to jump on your back.

"If a society is to be run in the interest of its people it necessitates their active participation in the decision making, for you can only trust what you can control. Therefore to achieve a truly socialist form of society it must be built from below up, it cannot be conferred by politicians, that is why we in the IWW say we must build the framework of the new society in the shell of what we have got, and this must be built industrially.

"Political rights and social justice do not originate in parliaments, rather they are forced upon parliaments from the outside, and even with their enactment into law there is no guarantee of security, for as the Mexican revolutionist once said:

"'Remember whatever a government gives you it can just as easily take away, but what you take by your strength you can hold by your strength"

"Hasn't your experience of the English parliamentary system taught you anything? All politicians are con men and racketeers."

Here the meeting broke up for a tea break, the second session was to discuss practical measures to bring about a Welsh Parliament so Bob left.

Footnote: Bob is a 75 year old veteran of class warfare. He was one of a handful of revolutionaries in Britain who launched the revamped British section of the IWW in 1947, and was active in the dockers strike. Bob was also involved in the Syndicalist Workers Federation and the Direct Action Movement. On Thursday 12 October, national Poetry Day in Britain, Bob was found outside a local bookshop in Aberystwyth reciting IWW poetry to the assembled masses.

Lehigh Bingo Owners Settled

Ten minutes before a NLRB hearing on unfair labor practices was to begin, the operators of Boulevard Bingo offered a settlement, under which they are to pay $6,800 in back wages to the three fired workers and drop their harassment law suit against IWW organizer Lenny Flank. The workers agreed not to demand reinstatement. This marks the end of a two-year struggle by workers at the bingo parlor to win decent conditions, a struggle in which one of the co-operators was barred from continued involvement in running the bingo parlor, and in which the suviving partner repeatedly demonstrated his complete contempt for workers' rights.

Joe Hill, Political Song Celebration

A celebration of Political Song celebrating the power of music and song in struggles for liberation, equality and justice and commemorating IWW songwriter Joe Hill on the 80th anniversary of his death will be held November 17-19th in Sheffield, England. The program includes a series of labor films and a play, The Dream of Joe Hill, beginning Nov. 8, and two days of music and workshops on Saturday Nov. 18 and Sunday Nov. 19. Day time programs - including Cor Cochion, Eurydice, Leeds People's Choir, Nottingham Clarion Choir, Raised Voices, Rotherham Red Choir, Velvet Fist, Wendy Corum, Annie Dearman & Vic Gammon, Dave Douglas, Claire Mooney, Mick Parkin, Liz Ounstead and Janet Wood - are free, while there is a charge for featured performances by Leon Rosselson, Frankie Armstrong, Dick Gaughan, Quimantu, Roy Bailey, Labi Siffre, Abdul T-Jay and the Rokoto Band. Workshops will be led by the IWW's own Fred Lee and others. For registration, tickets or information, write: Raise Your Banners!, 106 Osgathorpe Road, Sheffield S4 7AS or telephone 0114 253 4453.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1585 (November 1995)

I'm feeling frustrated. I'm trying to figure out the proper roll for a militant rank and filer in a major labor struggle when the union "leadership" is less than militant. As a Wobbly I of course believe and advocate that only direct action can produce results. There I part ways with the "leaders" of the unions involved in the Detroit newspapers strike. They seem willing to play by the laws established to protect the interests of the ruling class against those of the working class.

As a Wobbly I also believe and advocate that only the workers directly involved in a struggle can and should determine the appropriate tactics. As a supporter of the striking newspaper workers, I can only do what they want me to do to help them. There I part ways with the "leaders" of a leftist sect who are trying to set themselves up as the vangurd of the struggle.

A court injunction has been imposed against mass picketing at the Sterling Heights plant where most of the scab Detroit newspapers have been printed. Prior to the injunction thousands of strikers and their supporters blocked trucks from leaving the plant to a point where the Detroit Newspaper Agency was not meeting its contract with its advertisers for timely delivery of the paper. Some weekends home delivery of the Sunday morning paper didn't occur until Sunday evening when most readers found the Saturday sports scores more than a little stale. Even prior to the injunction Teamster "leaders" were out on the line telling the militant picketers to let the trucks roll rather than risk a confrontation. Then the picketers basically told the "leaders" to go to hell; and the trucks didn't roll for a long time. Since then the injunction has been imposed and the "leaders" have agreed to honor it, without any vote from the rank and file. And a rank and file used to following "leaders" has acquiesced.

A sizeable support coalition has developed consisting of rank and filers from other unions including the Wobblies, students, political activists, and church people. It has overwhelmingly called on the leadership of the six striking unions to defy the injunction. I have to believe that the membership of the striking unions would hold the same position if they were asked. Hopefully pressure from the coalition will force the union "leaders" to rethink their position or better yet to ask what their members think.

The other set of would-be "leaders" is called the Strike to Win Committee, a front group for a vanguard political sect, not to be named here because they have already been the victim of red-baiting by Teamster "leaders" and I don't want to play into that game. They would determine the course of the strike by putting themselves out front, again with little input from the strikers. They call for defying the injunction. So do I. They've engaged in some militant but foolish actions such as throwing things at the Vance security guards and taunting the cops when they didn't have the support of the rank and filers. Some of their actions have given the DNA fuel for a propaganda campaign about the "violence" of the strikers. Of course the DNA propaganda doesn't speak of the use of clubs, tear gas, and pepper gas by the cops, of arbitrary arrests, of the police lieutenant in Sterling Heights who was forced to resign when he was filmed kicking a picketer who lay helplessly on the ground. But the actions of the Committee have not helped in a struggle where consumer support is still a crucial factor and where many a consumer may decide to buy or not buy the paper, to shop or not shop with scab advertisers based on which side looks like the victims and which the culprits. Until the militance and solidarity of the strikers is such that it can stop production, the good will of the consumers is vital.

These same vanguard "leaders" leafletted inside schools in Sterling Heights calling the students to the picket line to trash the goons and the cops. This alienated parents, both consumers and strikers.

In an effort to distance themselves from these characters, and finding a convenient patsy to take the heat for some confrontations in which the participants were in fact militant unionists, "leaders" of the Teamsters have taken to red-baiting, even suggesting that the Committee is infiltrated by Vance Security agents provocateur. "Leaders" going after "leaders," neither group thinking about what's best for the members.

So I plod along on the picket line. I'm "polite" to customers shopping at the stores of scab advertisers as I try to persuade them, with fair success, to shop elsewhere. And I'm muttering under my breath as I think of words attributed to Emiliano Zapata which should ring in the ears of the strikers. "You've looked for leaders. There are none. There is only yourselves."

[The Detroit News is owned by Gannett Publishers, the same company which produces USA Today. If our readers chose to visit their local USA Today box and leave them a message about the strike, it's doubtful that the striking newspaper workers would have any objections. The Union "leaders" have made no comments about expressions of consumer outrage.]

--Fred Chase, General Secretary-Treasurer

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1585 (November 1995)

I laugh when Detroit Newspapers spokesmen moan about how union featherbedding is holding their profit to $1 million a week. Unions get accused of featherbedding when companies automate jobs and workers fight to keep positions. At production plants, newspaper unions have offered to cooperate in job reductions, but management wants quicker cuts.

My Webster's says featherbedding occurs when an employer is forced "to pay more employees than are needed for a particular operation or to pay full wages for nonproductive labor or unnecessary or duplicating jobs."

Detroit Free Press management has made a science of that. About 15 years ago, when I first stuck my nose into the Free Press city room, there was an army of people reporting and portraying the news and a handful of decision-makers. News drove the paper and news filled the paper.

In the 1990s, reporters and photographers are overwhelmed by an army of suits who massage and package the news. New species of managers spawn every week, all with a single imperative: to meet. Only the pushiest news can get through the meeting blockade.

It starts with a morning news meeting, where top editors concoct story ideas that often involve minor events in their pricey neighborhoods. That's why you see stories about fish flies in Grosse Pointe but rarely read about fights over land use in Romulus.

In mid-afternoon, the same editors meet again to spin out bizarre variations on their morning ideas, often based on what they overheard at lunch at the Detroit Club. At other times, they meet to plan weekend stories and project stories, to devise new types of training for staff members, to reorganize beats and departments, to kiss the right cheeks and to dream up new reasons for meeting. They frequently disappear for weekend retreats and return abuzz with new agendas.

To get a major story into the paper, a reporter must engage in "team building," an endless series of meetings whose purpose is to massage the egos of various department heads and subheads. Stories get in the paper not on news values, but because the proper twits were tweaked. Good stories get killed or trimmed for lack of face time with the right people. While union members are working to get news into the paper, in the bloated ranks of middle management the only mandate is to meet management goals. It's a huge make-work project.

A while back the Free Press created the inventive position of Editor for Change. About nine months later, I bumped into her. I asked he what she did on her job. She replied: "I haven't figured it out yet." And they say unions make the paper inefficient.

I have a solution to the strike: Put all the managers in a huge conference room with plenty of feathered beds, lock the door and throw away the key. Give the rest of us a fair raise, get out of our way and let us put out a paper again.

Originally appeared in The Detroit Union. Reprinted in the Industrial Worker #1585 (November 1995)

Rebels Against the Future, by Kirkpatrick Sale, Addison Wesley, 1995 $24.

Kirkpatrick Sale is writing, first of all, about the English Luddites of the early 19th century and, secondly, of their successors today. But the title is a bit misleading. Both groups represent not "rebels against the future (emphasis mine)," but rebels against a future; one for which they never voted, and one where their interests were never seriously considered. As Sale puts it, "They (the Luddites) were rebels against the future that was being assigned to them by the new political economy taking hold in Britain, in which... those who controlled capital were able to do almost anything they wished."

With inflation, brought on by a 20-year war with Napoleon, raging, crops failing, wages falling and unions illegal, craftsmen in the heart of England from Manchester to Nottingham to Leeds rose in carefully coordinated assaults on factories and the machines they contained. Faces blackened and armed mostly with their own tools, they struck terror into the hearts of the newly powerful industrial capitalists.

Secrecy and surprise were the Luddite watchwords. Although not every raid succeeded, England was in an uproar from the first attacks in 1811 until the movement petered out in 1815. Many suspected Luddites were arrested, some were hanged, and others transported to penal colonies. The authorities finally succeeded in restoring order only by sending more troops to the heartland than they had sent against Bonaparte in Portugal. But they never succeeded in penetrating the movement, finding its leaders or understanding its structure. Indeed the convolution had no parallel since the mysterious "Great Society" of the 14th had plunged England into turmoil.

The history of the Luddites was, of course, written by the movement's enemies and "Luddite" entered our language as a synonym for a blind opponent of progress. Sale corrects that picture, helping us to understand that these "machine breakers" were not merely trying to keep their own incomes up, but were also fighting against the destruction of a way of life that had sustained them and countless other craftsmen for centuries. The skilled worker who had provided "good gods" at a fair price working at his own pace in his own house was being replaced by the wage slave toiling his life away in horribly unhealthy factories for 12 or more hours a day for a pittance that was his only alternative to starvation. In a few decades, the Industrial Revolution reduced a third of England's population to a destitution that saw 57% of the country;s children dead before the age of five and a laborer's life expectancy reduced to 18 years.

On the practical level, Sale notes, the Luddite movement was a failure. The new machines proliferated, skilled craftsmen were economically destroyed, and Dickensian misery stalked the land. But the Luddites did succeed in raising the "machinery question" which has never gone away - i.e., what is the cost of "progress," and who shall pay it? Ever since the Luddites took up their hammers, blind faith in the "onward and upward" has been tempered by a realism that sees, as Sale says, that "whatever its presumed benefits... industrial technology comes at a price, and, in the contemporary world, that price is ever rising and ever threatening."

While Sale's history is interesting and enlightening, the most useful part of his book for those who want to understand the present comes in the discussion of the neo-Luddites of our own time. Like Ned Ludd's bands, they too are rebelling against a future they never made, one where the cost-benefit ration of technology is heavily weighted in favor of the already rich and powerful with machines that have left 40% of the work force in disposable jobs, devastated the Earth and reduced much of the Third World from poverty to abject misery.

The neo-Luddites reject the myth that any technology is politically and morally neutral, holding that technology that goes beyond the laboratory into the world is the technology that benefits the ruling class. Therefore, the introduction of any technology, the neo-Luddites demand, must be subject to the consent of those who will be most affected by it. If the machines are economically, ecologically or culturally destructive, alternatives must be sought. If none can be found, the old ways continue.

Where Sale becomes uncertain, however, is in his advice on what is to be done to win this veto power. In this sense, he ends where he should begin. Perhaps because most unions have been so slow to recognize this threat, let alone combat it, Sale sees little value in mass action, believing that "the nation state, synergistically intertwined with industrialism, will always come to its defense, making revolt futile and reform ineffectual." Yet many of the instances he cites when the onward rush of "progress" was stopped or diverted, as in France and India, depended on mass protest and mass action, often of the more drastic sort.

Sale seems to prefer a kind of individualized philosophical resistance founded on spiritual traditions of long standing, such as those that have protected the Amish and some Native American tribes from being sucked into a culture of greed. But he does not tell us how the rest of us not so blessed are to acquire the ideological ammunition to fight this war. Books like Sale's are clearly part of that supply, but even the author is far from certain they are enough.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1586 (December 1995)

Ralph Williams is a city bus driver for the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) in Chattanooga, Tenn. He has worked for the bus company for almost ten years, and in that time has seen all kinds of racial discrimination, both in hiring and disciplinary practices. He has seen every Black worker who spoke out against company policies harassed and fired. Conditions are so bad that Black workers call CARTA "the plantation" and chafe at being treated as nothing but slaves. In 1993, however, all this began to change when a Black worker - James Jones, who was fired because of his wife's civil right activism - wouldn't take his dismissal lying down and filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This was apparently the first such complaint filed, and it shook up the company and its racially biased management.

Jones then began to encourage other CARTA employees to complain about the many cases of racial discrimination and to take their cases to court.

Ralph Williams was one of those who did so. He had already filed a complaint with a city "Human Rights" agency, and this simple act of filing a grievance earned him the eternal hatred of the CARTA management. They targeted him for harassment and job termination; on one occasion they said to his face that they would fire him "just like James Jones." However this threat did not intimidate Ralph. He began to keep a daily journal of the acts of management harassment against him and send it to EEOC and other agencies as proof of illegal retaliation. But nothing was done to protect him.

In 1994 Ralph filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against CARTA for discrimination and harassment. The company then began to follow him on his routes, scream at him over the two-way radio, and file a series of bogus disciplinary reports which caused him to lose days off and paid hours. They hoped to pressure him to give up and resign, or to pad his record with false reports which would justify his firing. None of that worked, however, and Ralph continued to report for duty each day without fail - and with a smile on his face! Company officials were extremely frustrated because they had never had anyone fight them so hard, and yet remain so cool in the face of their outrageous daily provocations.

Ralph held on for years, and he began to organize on the job. He got other workers to file complaints when they were mistreated, including a number of Black women subjected to sexual pressure from the corrupt "union" president and a company vice president. He enlisted a number of labor-based groups to write complaint letters. And it did stop the severity of the harassment for a while, but then management got desperate to stop this on-the-job unity and really bore down on anyone who stood up. Some people unfortunately folded and went into a shell, and some sold out entirely.

Even though the harassment by the company wore the women down and they dropped their EEOC charges, Ralph never wavered. In 1995 he and a group of Black passengers, organized as the "Chattanooga Bus Riders Union," filed a complaint with the federal Department of Transportation alleging that the bus company was engaged in racial discrimination in its employment and disciplinary practices, routing and overall operations. The complaint asked that all federal grants earmarked for the company be terminated.

After the DOT failed to act, the Bus Riders Union and several CARTA employees filed a lawsuit in federal court charging these same issues, and seeking a court injunction against a proposed fare hike which would hurt poor and elderly riders. This really marked Ralph for harassment by management, and he was given a number of bogus disciplinary reports along with numerous days off without pay, and told that if he did "anything else" against company rules he would be summarily fired.

Even in the face of this threat, Ralph continued to organize. He filed a complaint for unfair labor practices against the company and its lapdog "union," local 1212 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, with the National Labor Relations Board, and filed another lawsuit over the harassment. Seeing that they would never stop him by legal means, someone sympathetic to the company decided to use outright terrorism to shut him up.

In the early morning hours of January 5, an arsonist spread gasoline on his front porch and set his house on fire, literally burning it down to the ground. Fortunately Ralph was not there that night or he might have been killed in his bed. An arson investigator from the fire department told him it was definitely arson. He asked Ralph who it was he had made so mad? Ralph told him "only those clowns I work for." The cops and FBI refused to investigate. In that small town the cops tend to cover up for the dirty work of prominent citizens, killer cops and major corporations - especially when it comes to the rights of Black people.

Of course, Ralph does not know who actually committed the fire, but he knows who had a motive: his employers at CARTA and the company labor union. Ralph has lost everything he owned, but he continues to fight on even in the face of new threats to his life. He wants to install a new union and drive out the corrupt union officials, so a real union would bring an end to these types of injustices against workers. Ralph is very strong, but he should not have to fight alone. Everyone of us who believes in racial justice, and that a worker has a right to organize and protest company misconduct on his job, should join in his fight.

Many workers in Chattanooga are even more frightened now to say anything because of this act of terrorism,. Clearly he needs our help, and we should give it to him. The terrorists cannot be allowed to succeed in silencing this symbol of the best that unionism is all about. If he is crushed the workforce there has no hope at all.

What can you do?

1. Write, fax, or telephone a complaint to CARTA company management to protest this harassment of Ralph Williams and other Black/female workers. Send these complaints to the head of the company and to the union at the same address: Tom Dugan, CEO, CARTA,1716 Wilcox Avenue, Chattanooga TN 37404 Tel: 615/629-1411 fax: 615/698-2749

2. All of Ralph's furniture, food and clothing, along with his word processor and papers, were destroyed in the fire and must be replaced. Send funds to Ralph Williams at: Workers Aid Fund, c/o Atlanta WSA, 673 Wylie St. SE, Atlanta GA 30316-1162. Please send funds in U.S. currency only.

3. Write to Ralph and tell him you stand with him in this fight, send copies of your protest letters to: Ralph Williams, 2506 E. 3rd Street, Chattanooga TN 37404

Let's take a stand against racism and the harassment of workers!

-- Lorenzo Komboa Ervin

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1589 (March 1996)

Despite wind chill temperatures of minus 30 Celsius, some 15,000 workers rallied in the streets of London, Ontario on December 11 last year in the first attempt at a city-wide general strike. The strike was called for by the Ontario Federation of Labour as a weapon against the increasingly reactionary policies of the Progressive Conservative provincial government.

Business in the city of London was brought down to a trickle as protesters marched in two rallies that converged at the city's fairgrounds. City bus services were cancelled as transit workers did not report for duty. Picket lines went up the evening before at a GM diesel plant, Ford plant in Talbotville and CAMI car assembly plant in Ingersoll and kept 9,000 workers off the job. Production was also shut down at other plants including the Canada Post sorting plant. Federal, provincial and municipal government offices functioned only with skeleton crews.

At the Fairground rally workers were encouraged to extend their protests across the province by leaders of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Bob White, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, brought greetings of solidarity from striking workers in France. Politically charged music was provided the entire day by musicians volunteering for the event.

The next city targeted for strike action was Hamilton - steel centre of the province. It is taking place over a two-day period, Feb. 23 - 24, at the same time the Progressive Conservatives are holding their convention.

Debate has been heavy within the Ontario Federation of Labour leadership over the strikes. The Steelworkers are reluctant to place so much emphasis on industrial action and indicated that they would not shut down Hamilton's steel mills. They have continued to push the legislative road to organized labour's predicament through support for the New Democratic Party.

The Canadian Auto Workers and some public service unions have argued, however, that reliance on the NDP is a dead end at this crucial stage and that nothing is left but opposition at the job level. A compromise was finally reached with the USWA agreeing to join the strike and giving prominent New Democrats a major role.

Meanwhile, local labour assemblies are taking matters into their own hands as the government begins to ram through Bill 26, the newest piece of legislation designated as "the bully bill."

This new bill forces massive changes to 44 existing provincial statutes. Under the guise of supposedly paring down big government, the bill will transfer and extend significant power to municipalities, allowing them the right to hire and fire teachers, cut funding to conservation authorities and social agencies, contract our firefighting to private enterprise, impose user fees, all with little or no public input.

While former governments at least made a pretense of being democratic in allowing public input, this bill will be rammed through the legislature by a majority Conservative caucus after only two weeks of public discussion. Local labour councils and community organizations have been staging protests at all cities where hearings are held. As part of that protest, 40,000 teachers from across the province staged a demonstration at the doors of the Ontario legislature in Toronto to voice their opposition to the bill.

More and more sectors of society actively oppose the government's actions. The course of events is changing the political landscape of the province. Public sector workers have been forced into an activist role. (This month, thousands of Ontario Public Service Employees Union members may be forced into a strike.) Teachers have entered the fray. Medical professions have spoken out and even small business organizations are nervous and shake with growing threats of radical strike actions from labour's ranks.

While the New Democrats desperately paint themselves as the "see, you shoulda voted for us even though we screwed you" good guys and Liberals sniff at the edges of the workers movement trying to pass themselves off as the friends of labour, the public is disillusioned with politicians of every stripe.

The strike in Hamilton will be different from the one in London, revealing very different approaches to where the movement should proceed. In the process, however, more workers have become radicalized and are calling for strike action in more cities and across the entire province.

-- Len Wallace, X304149

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1589 (March 1996)

As Gannett and Knight-Ridder's (owners of the Detroit News and Free Press ) strike-related losses approach $150 million, the giant media conglomerates show no sign of backing down. "We're going to hire a whole new work force and go on without unions," Detroit News editor Robert Giles said, "or they can surrender unconditionally and salvage what they can."

The publishers appear to be winning. Yes, circulation is way down; advertising is down; and the union-published Detroit Sunday Journal is being well-received. But in any starve-out strike, Gannett and Knight-Ridder start with a huge advantage - they can drop a couple hundred of million bucks on union-busting and cover the losses from their other newspapers, magazines, billboards, TV stations, etc. As long as they can keep their scab papers on the streets - and in the face of anti-labor injunctions, the newspaper unions have essentially given up on stopping the scab papers - they will eventually come out on top.

So something needs to be done. There is growing support for a national labor march on Detroit to support the striking newspaper workers. But we don't need more symbolic marches, replete with politicians mouthing pious platitudes about the "little people" (leprechauns, grab your wallets).

We've done plenty of marching in recent years, and all it's given us is sore feet. We need direct action at the point of production to hit the bosses where it hurts - in their pocketbooks.

There are in the neighborhood of a half-million union members in the Detroit vicinity - more than enough to effectively picket the printing, editorial and distribution centers and shut the scab papers down. It can be done - and sustained - as long as necessary, if the unions (and members) are determined to turn back the union-busters.

Union Scabbing

A few weeks back an appeal ran in the New York Times pleading with other workers to honor building workers' picket lines. "This is your strike too," the full-page ad explained. "If you cross a picket line, you hurt the members of Local 32B-32J and you hurt the members of your union. You hurt yourself too...

"The old truism `an injury to one is an injury to all' was born in times of turmoil and every union is facing times of turmoil again... The reason unions became successful in the early years of this century was because working people banded together. The spirit of unionism was alive in every worker's heart... It didn't matter what union was involved, when a picket line went up, no union member crossed." (emphasis in original)

One could quarrel with their history (the AFL was built on union-scabbing), but the basic premise is sound - Union scabbing must stop!

The labor movement is weak today. But we aren't so weak that we have to stab our fellow workers in the back in a desperate scramble for the occasional crumb the bosses dangle in front of our noses. If workers once again begin taking picket lines seriously - refusing to do scab work, refusing to haul scab cargo, refusing to service struck employers or struck job sites, refusing to do anything whatever to aid the bosses while they are trying to crush our fellow workers - we are strong enough to make it stick.

Some unions did honor the 32B-32J lines, and the bosses had to scale back their give-back demands. But it's time to stop battling the bosses with both hands tied behind our backs, blindfolded, playing by their rules...

Mickey Mouse Beats Workers

While the U.S. and other governments turn a blind eye to labor repression in China, the State Department is threatening substantial penalties if the Chinese authorities don't crack down on pirated movies, CDs and computer software. It seems Mickey Mouse has much more pull in the corridors of Washington than do workers...

Dollars for Democrats

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the federation will spend $35 million in the 1996 election campaign in behalf of 75 targetted candidates. The AFL is meeting this month to formally endorse President Clinton's re-election.

Sweeney, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, has been wandering the country offering olive branches to the employing class. He might do better to borrow a page from our French fellow workers, who apparently know what to do when they find themselves under attack...

Public Safety

The New York Times (2/10/96) criticizes Guinea's government for its incompetence, "unable to achieve such elementary results as paying salaries on time or keeping the streets safe from policemen..." It's nice to see our paper of record finally admit that people need protection from the police, rather than the other way around.

Featherbedding

As we go to press, another rail accident, this time in New Jersey, has killed two engineers - one of whom had been working for 14 hours - and a passenge. We've had a string of such "accidents" in recent months as rail companies have slashed train crews and increased working hours in an all-out war against the dreaded feather-bedding.

Not that the bosses are against feather beds, mind you (one need only visit the management suites to see that they have no objection to a little luxury). But the thought of paying a few "extra" workers to keep an eye out for safety gives them indigestion...

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1589 (March 1996)

"I ain't scared of your jails cuz I want my freedom." In honor of Black History Month there was a fine retrospective on the radio yesterday about the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee during Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Of course it mentioned the murder of three civil rights workers there, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. They were about my age, young men at the time. I was just coming into political consciousness. They already had theirs. I had just engaged in my first demonstration in Ypsilanti at Eastern Michigan University, a support march for the freedom fighters in the south. I knew I wanted to be involved in bringing about change. Those murders made me very aware of the potential price of freedom.

"I ain't scared of dying 'cuz I want my freedom!" the voice on the radio sings defiantly, but with a detectable tremor that tells me the singer was indeed scared of dying but wasn't going to let that deter him from his goal. And the former SNCC activists on the program told of how every once in a while they would be very scared of dying, but would suppress it by plunging back into their organizing. My personal heroes scare easily, but they don't deter easily.

Someone sent a postcard to General Headquarters recently. It has a picture of Mother Jones on it. She is quoted saying: "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." Well, I'm not a praying man; but I do honor the dead while I'm fighting for the living. And those three names are branded into my consciousness. I can only imagine how many others were radicalized by their sacrifice.

They were part of a seminal movement. Their courage and that of thousands of others like them brought the beginning of the end of segregation. Of course it didn't end racism. That's a struggle which will no doubt always be with us. But they're part of a long line of people from the beginning of human time who have risked all for principles like freedom and justice. Their example inspired others to risk in other movements for the same principles. They were no doubt inspired by the risks of those who came before them.

I'm getting the feeling that a seminal movement today may be the struggle for economic justice.

And one of the key battlegrounds may be in Detroit where the strike against Gannett and Knight-Ridder drags into its 7th month. Detroit remains a relative stronghold in the U.S. labor movement. Close to a quarter of a million people in Southeast Michigan are Union. I have to wonder if that isn't the reason Detroit was chosen for this particular battle. If Gannett and Co. can bust the six striking unions at the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, in the back yard of the UAW, in an area of Teamster strength, it will promote the illusion that they are invincible. And that will send a message of encouragement to other corporate giants that, if they haven't done so already, now's the time for the final drive to crush the unions.

Each of the Detroit papers has reported more than $50 million in losses and expectations of losing tens of millions more because of the strike. Yet a spokesperson from Gannett shrugs. The corporate giant which publishes U.S.A. Today can lose 50 million in Detroit and still report corporate profits of 70 million for the year.

Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama will be remembered for posturing in a schoolhouse door to block racial integration, his infamous comment: "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" George was proven wrong because of the courage of people like Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. If people like them decide it's time to take a stand in today's struggle, the suits at Gannett and Knight-Ridder will be proven wrong as well.

There's talk of efforts to get the AFL-CIO high mucky-mucks to come back to Detroit to lead a march in the spring. And there's talk of using that march as a springboard for massive civil disobedience against the papers. There's even talk of promoting a general strike in Detroit. That kind of talk was starting to be heard last September when thousands of strikers and their supporters stood up to Sterling Heights cops and Vance Security goons at the Detroit News plant. It faded with the imposition of an injunction against mass picketing which the leaders of the striking unions decided to honor.

Now the NLRB has ruled the unions have engaged in an unfair labor practice by harrassing scabs. The Gannett spokesman says he hopes this will encourage the unions to change their tactics. It's certainly time to change tactics. The ones determined to be acceptable by the powers that be are bound to lose the strike for the workers.

So maybe it's time for civil disobedience and general strikes. And maybe talk of these or other actions shouldn't be limited to Detroit. Gannett is everywhere in the U.S. If it succeeds in busting the Detroit strike, it will use its deep pockets to fight the unions at its papers across the country. Of course we all know that the general strike is a romantic dream, an impractical theory. That's what I was taught in school. Apparently French workers aren't as well schooled as those of us in the United States.

The "leaders" of the striking Detroit newspaper unions don't seem likely to take any action which might put them in jail or put their treasuries in jeopardy. If it is to happen, it will come from the rank-and-file workers who have had enough, who are ready to say "I ain't scared of your jails, goons, injunctions cuz I want my freedom, want my freedom, want my freedom NOW!"

See you on the picket line.

Fred Chase

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1589 (March 1996)

Despite desperate attempts by the management of the Keystone Job Corps Center in Drums, Pennsylvania, to stop the IWW union organizing effort, our campaign continues stronger than ever. In the past month, two delegates on Keystone have signed up enough members to charter an Industrial Union branch, student employees have made trips to learn how to be union organizers, and daily reports on the antics of their bosses are called in to the Philadelphia General Membership Branch.

The unfair labor practices of the Keystone Job Corps Center are being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. In arguing for our charges to be dismissed, Job Corps insists that our fellow workers are "students," not employees entitled to protection under the law. A shocking claim indeed, as Job Corps in their own publication Job Corps In Action (Winter 1997) applauded Centers for describing the young people on their Centers as employees. The article quotes Deb Kelley, a manager of an Oregon Job Corps Center, as saying, "At the beginning it is explained to student employees that the entire center is their work site. Every staff person is their supervisor. They are on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week." With hours that long, no wonder our campaign is catching on so quickly.

Keystone Center now chooses to play a linguistic game to cover up its disgusting union-busting activities. What they seem to forget is that even if it turns out our fellow workers aren't defined as "employees," they still have rights - unlike other American workers they will be protected in their practice of free speech and freedom of association. The IWW is on the Center, and our presence will continue to grow no matter what.

Kere Harcourt, a union activist who continued to organize even after Matt Wilson and Joe Marra were suspended for ten days after their first meeting with IWW representatives, was "medically discharged" in late July. Kere had been complaining to the infirmary on the center for more than a month of cramps and severe pains in her stomach. She was told for over a month that she was fine, given water and Motrin, and sent on her way. On Thursday, July 24, Kere was rushed to a hospital in the nearby town of Hazelton for emergency surgery. Her gall bladder had swollen to four times its normal size, encroaching on her appendix, which had to be removed.

Kere called the IWW Philadelphia Branch July 27 to let us know what happened and that she was told she had six months to recover and if she was not better within that time, she could not come back. The IWW began a campaign that night to demand that 1) Kere be reinstated to the Job Corps program whenever her doctor says she is again medically fit, 2) full medical coverage be extended to Kere while she is on leave, 3) the infirmary is investigated by an independent third party, and 4) that all employees of the Keystone Center are authorized to call for 911 ambulance service. Your help is needed to ensure that the Keystone infirmary is held accountable to its charge of providing quality health care to the young people on the center and that Kere Harcourt is reinstated.

Scissorbills on parade

A letter to the editor of the local paper in Hazelton, PA, the Standard-Speaker was printed August 6. A Keystone student employee wrote in to insist that the Job Corps helps to "prepare them for their future."

Curiously, her letter begins, "I am writing in response to an article about the Keystone Job Corps Center that was displayed in your newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I do not have a copy of it." When the Standard-Speaker published articles detailing the reasons the union drive was started - the wrongful suspensions and harassment of our activists, the illegal firing of Matthew Wilson, the center security classifying and confiscating our organizing materials as contraband, and the shameful incompetence of the Keystone infirmary staff - all copies of the newspaper were confiscated. Even an article on Keystone's management's unwillingness to bargain in good faith with the union representatives for the residential advisors was censored.

If Keystone would honestly like to prepare the young people on their center for the future, one of the first steps is to develop their critical thinking skills and not control their ability to receive information. Another preparation for the path that the young people are put on by Job Corps after they receive training for low paying, highly competitive jobs is training on how to organize a union - training the IWW is glad to provide.

A 56-page appeal of FW Matt Wilson's termination was filed August 7 at the Office of Job Corps, Region III in Philadelphia. Matt was terminated July 8 by Keystone Center Director June Boswell. Her reasons for terminating Matt have yet to be fully explained; only one sentence and one multiple choice answer on a Job Corps form were provided to Matt for him to base his appeal. It is quite clear that Matt was vindictively brought before the Keystone Center Review Board, a panel of center staff that makes disciplinary recommendations, on unsubstantiated charges in retaliation for his efforts to organize for the IWW. Instead of detailing her real reason for firing Matt, Boswell claims in a July 8 Separation/Transfer Notice that Matt was dismissed for "violence," even though there was not a single shred of evidence presented at his hearing to justify such a claim. The process of termination at Keystone is a circuitous one where the Center Director, who acts as judge, participates in the prosecution. Boswell intentionally denied Matt enough time and information to prepare a defense. She helped compose a memorandum to the Center Review Board to recommend his termination before evidence was even presented. And after the Review Board made its ill-founded decision to terminate Matt with "completion status" (similar to an honorable discharge in the military), Boswell changed the termination classification to "disciplinary discharge" when his appeal of the Center Review Board's decision was heard. This action cost Matt $500 of his readjustment money, which is given to Job Corps student employees when they leave the program.

Who knows how far this appeal must be taken before it lands on the desk of a responsible party which can see Matt's termination for what it really is: as described in his appeal, "an undisguised act of bias and retaliation." As we go to press, Matt's appeal is on the desk of Lynn Intrepidi, the Deputy Regional Director of Job Corps Region III, who is to convene a Board to review his argument and make a decision by mid-month. While we don't hold out much hope in Intrepidi's ability to do the right thing since her office directed Matt's suspension in the first place, the merits of his case and his wonderful record on the Center can't be ignored, even by union-busting Job Corps bureaucrats.

The risks that the organizers in the Keystone Job Corps Center have taken are enormous. They're willing to risk not only their jobs, but also their homes, as the Keystone Center is where they reside. Many of our organizers signed up for Job Corps because they used to have nowhere to turn and wanted to make a better life for themselves. Now, in their efforts to make a better life for themselves and their fellow workers on the Keystone Center, they turn to the IWW. We're there every step of the way and then some -- and will stop at nothing to secure their right to form a union.

-- Alexis Buss

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (September 1997)

Nominations

Fred Chase was the sole nominee for General Secretary-Treasurer. Several candidates were nominated for next year's General Executive Board: Tim Acott (Portland), Laure Akai (Moscow), Monica Berini (Oakland), Alexis Buss (Philadelphia), Bright Chicezi (Sierre Leone), Dan Fisher (Tennessee), Liam Flynn (Berkeley), Miriam Fried (Philadelphia), Mark Johnson (Seattle), Steve Kellerman (Boston), Fred Lee (Leicester), Morgan Miller (Portland), John Persak (Seattle), Penny Pixler (Chicago), Bob Rivera (Michigan), Michael Reinsboro (Los Angeles), Scott Rittenhouse (Los Angeles), Robert Rush (Berkeley), Nathan Smith (Asheville), Bob Tibbs Jr. (St. Louis), Pete Wilcox (Honolulu). Note that many candidates have not yet indicated whether they wish to stand for election, nor has eligibility been verified, so the actual ballot will not include all nominees.
Members will also choose between Asheville (North Carolina), Boston, Detroit, London, Madison, Portland (Oregon) and Toronto for the 1998 General Assembly, and vote on whether to hold the Assembly over Labor Day weekend or in May.

Assembly Resolutions

Delegates approved a proposal urging each Branch to take responsibility for covering the full cost of providing services to members, even if this requires special assessments or fundraisers, and a motion calling on the General Executive Board to convene a committee incorporating representatives from countries where the IWW has significant membership to develop more effective international structures and communication. Another motion reaffirms the IWW's boycott against Borders Books and calls on IWW branches to step up organizing efforts against the bookstore chain.
Several proposals were sent to referendum vote of the membership, including a constitutional amendment to clarify minimum dues payments from overseas Regional Organizing Committees, a reorganization of the union's General Defense Committee, and to require IWW branches to furnish copies of all external communications to the IWW Archives at Wayne State University. (The text of the latter specifies that this would include email, web sites, and other non-traditional media; how this would be implemented is unclear.)

Another proposal being sent to referendum would amend the IWW Constitution to clarify the conditions under which non-waged producer cooperatives could be recognized as IWW shops. The proposal would require such cooperatives to not undermine wages in the industry, to honor all unions' boycotts and strikes, and adhere to democratic internal practices.

Also being sent to referendum is a proposal to eliminate the IWW's long-standing practice of imprinting dues stamps to indicate the category of dues (minimum, regular, maximum) being paid; a practice essential to enabling Branches and the General Administration to audit the records of union delegates and ensure that all dues collected are actually paid to the union. Similar proposals have been raised repeatedly over the past few years, with proponents claiming the current practice somehow places a stigma on low-income members. Others insist the current practice is essential to ensure accountability for union funds and protect against misappropriation of funds. This will be the first time members have been asked to vote on the issue.

The full text of all referenda will be published in the September issue of the IWW's General Organization Bulletin.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1606 (October 1997)

After more than two years on strike, the Liverpool dockers have once again confirmed their resolve to stand by union principles, voting overwhelmingly against taking [sterling]28,000 bribes to abandon the Torside dockers (who were fired for refusing unpaid overtime; the Mersey dockers were locked-out when they honored Torside dockers' picket lines) and give up the fight for all their jobs. Fewer than 75 dockers would have returned to work under the proposal. Only 329 of the nearly 500 dockers involved in the dispute were permitted to vote in the ballot ordered by TGWU officials, and only 97 of those voted to give in.

Mersey Docks & Harbour Co. responded with an announcement that it would send each docker a form to sign abandoning their jobs in exchange for the [sterling]28,000 payment.

In the midst of an exuberant picket celebrating the No vote a policewoman instructed a steward to get off the grass and stop shouting at scabs behind the perimeter fence. Fifty pickets quickly crossed the road to join their colleague and an Inspector told his junior officer to move away.

A few days later, traffic in and out of the Port of Dublin came to a standstill October 28 as Liverpool dockers blockaded the main entrance for an hour. When the Gardai arrived the dockers began to circle the roundabout, further disrupting traffic before marching to the Coastal Container terminal where many workers came out to join them and all work stopped for 30 minutes. At the Irish Ferries berth, dockers refused all work on the "Coastal Bay," a Coastal Container vessel owned by Jungerhans.

Dublin handles more Liverpool ships than any other port in the world, including frequent services on Coastal Container Line which is 100 percent owned by MDHC and also serves Belfast, Greenock and Cardiff.

Michael O'Reilly, incoming ATGWU Regional Secretary for the Republic of Ireland, said his members were "trying to show our solidarity and continue a long association with the Liverpool dispute. We are seeking the support of our colleagues from other unions in the Port of Dublin."

In Liverpool dockers are once again confronting the Operational Support Division (riot police) of Merseyside Police on the picket line. Evidently, this is Mersey Dock's response to the democratic decision of sacked dockers to reject their "final offer." Rather than open negotiations, they have called on the authorities and the media to back up their claim that the dispute is now "over." OSD officers prevented picketing of one gate 12 November to enable traffic to enter. Pickets succeeded in closing off the other two main entrances to the Port of Liverpool.

In Oakland, California, where pickets repeatedly blocked efforts to unload scab cargo from the Neptune Jade, loaded in MDHC-operated Thamesport, in October, employers are dragging identified picketers into court on charges of violating a court injunction barring effective solidarity actions. The bosses are also suing for economic damages.

On Oct. 28 the San Francisco Labor Council unanimously adoped a resolution reasserting their support of the Liberpool dockers, and "defending workers rights to picket and exercise their first amendment rights to speech and freedom of association." The resolution condemned the Pacific Maritime Association's lawsuit for damages and an injunction as an effort to intimidate workers and urged contributions to the legal defense of the pickets, at the Liverpool Dockers Victory Defense Committee, P.O. Box 2574, Oakland CA 94614.

When the Neptune Jade arrived in Yokohama October 15, dockers refused to unloadthe seven containers which had been loaded in Thamesport and were supposed to be unloaded in Oakland. But about 200 other containers were loaded and unloaded in Yokohama. Two days later Kobe dockers also resued to unload the containers.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1607 (December 1997)

Management of Philadelphia's Friends Center, a Quaker-operated office building which houses many Quaker and progressive organizations, has begun a plunge into the depths of union-busting in order to prevent four part-time front desk staffers from organizing with the IWW. Fortunately, the unbecoming attack on workers rights has not gone unchallenged - more supporters linked to the Friends Center come forward every day to encourage recognition of the union.

The four workers, who work evenings and weekends, sometimes in shifts of more than ten hours, decided to join the IWW and seek a binding contract which would secure their job and improve working conditions. They asked for voluntary recognition from their supervisor, Peter Rittenhouse, on September 2nd. Rittenhouse asked the front desk staffers to drop the union, but passed the final decision on to the Friends Center Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors met without being able to come up with an answer to the demand for voluntary recognition. A second meeting was called for September 25th, and front desk union member Susan Phillips asked permission to attend. She explained to the Board of Directors that not only had she and her fellow workers joined a union, but that they are the union and had no reason to reconsider their position. The front desk staff are organized and want come to the table as equals with management to negotiate a fair contract. Many members of the Board of Directors asked Susan questions, and she left the meeting with the understanding that in a few days they would decide their course of action.

Strangely, on October 1st our fellow workers received a letter dated September 17 (eight days before meeting with Susan) stating, "the Board of Directors of Friends Center Corporation is saddened by the realization that some employees feel it necessary to organize themselves as part of a larger labor organization in order for their concerns to be heard and to obtain redress for grievances. As a matter of conscience and faith, we believe that no persons should need an intermediary when discussing concerns, but rather should be able to gather `in the light' to discuss them... It is in the spirit of our belief in `continuing revelation' that we respectfully ask that you reconsider your proposal." This response, one so unfortunately typical of employers that have turn out to be among the most notorious union-busters, was somewhat unexpected after Susan's thoughtful explanations during the September 25th meeting. While citing Quaker principles of openness and free discussion, the Board totally disregarded the most fundamental points the union members were communicating to them.

The Philadelphia IWW filed a petition for an election with the NLRB two weeks after the Board of Directors issued their decision. At the hearing to determine an appropriate bargaining unit, management's attorney argued for including five more workers in the unit. One of the five isn't even an employee of the Friends Center - he wears a Willard uniform and works for a private contractor repairing heaters and air conditioning units at the Center. The Friends Center lawyer took exception to Wobblies' snickering at his absurd suggestion. Another employee management attempted to include supervises the front desk staff.

The Friends Center management, while claiming to be driven by a mission of conscience, has chosen to take full advantage of American anti-labor laws. They stubbornly insisted that we include workers into the unit who do completely different work and have clearly indicated that they have no desire to join the union. These workers share no community of interest with the evening and weekend staffers, and should not be forced to choose to either join the union or stand in the way of their co-workers who want to organize.

Having no faith in the NLRB's willingness to help us keep our unit intact, we tried for many hours to negotiate a settlement. The IWW and management decided on an unusual compromise: if the union can get five authorization cards (one more than the number of part-time front desk staffers) by mid-December, the Center would voluntarily recognize the entire unit management proposed, minus the private contractor.

The front desk staffers, joined by other Wobblies, have leafleted gatherings at the Friends Center to encourage support for voluntary recognition of their union. More than 700 fliers have been distributed in the past week generating an overwhelmingly supportive response. The Philadelphia Monthly Meeting called a "Threshing Session" which called for their representatives on the Board of Directors to reconsider their position. Dozens of supporters wearing bright red IWW buttons attended a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the American Friends Service Committee's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. Quakers and progressives in Philadelphia and around the country have expressed their solidarity by calling the Friends Center.

Your help in our effort to win recognition is appreciated. We're asking that the Friends Center Corporation voluntarily recognize the union of the four evening and weekend front desk staffers and that they stop trying to include workers in the unit who have clearly expressed that they have no interest in organizing. Contact John Blanchard, Chairman of the Board, and Peter Rittenhouse, Executive Director of the Friends Center, by writing Friends Center Corporation 15th & Cherry Streets, Phila. PA 19102, fax: 215/241-7028, e-mail: [email protected]. For more information on the campaign, call 215/724-1925 or e-mail [email protected].

-- Alexis Buss

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1607 (December 1997)

Workers at the Lincoln Park, Chicago Borders approved a UFCW-negotiated contract 29 to 8 October 1st, nearly a year to the day after they voted to join the union. While the UFCW was quick to put union security clauses and dues checkoff on the negotiating table, the issue of workers' pay was put on the back-burner, generating a little confusion at signing time. Borders insisted that they had agreed to a 3.5% pay increase per year, the UFCW said it was a 4.5% increase. Borders caved in, so workers can look forward to an extra $11 or so in their pay each week, before taxes. This pay increase was already in place as a "merit-based" raise, which was seldom denied to employees.

Workers also won the right to work 40 hours per week, as they need all the hours they can get since the average starting pay is $6.25 an hour. Borders had previously scheduled shorter work weeks to discourage overtime. Employees also received a $150 lump sum signing bonus which will be paid in February 1998, and a grievance procedure has been put into place.

Miriam Fried, who was on the IWW organizing committee while she worked at the Center City Philadelphia Borders in 1996 (until she was fired for union activity), said, "I'm disappointed by the results because it falls short of the major goals we had when working on our drive." At the foundation of most of the Borders drives is a demand for a living wage - a pay rate which most employees in retail never see. Borders management made their position clear in an April 1997 company newsletter: "If you desire an enjoyable job while you figure out what to do with your life, this is a good place to be. But if you try to make a career path out of something which can never be a well-paying job, you will be up against an impossible task because of all of the economic constraints in the retail industry."

While many workers at Borders take on second jobs to make ends meet, Borders CEO Robert DiRomualdo was paid $24 million in 1996. Modest in comparison to DiRomualdo, but still dwarfing the wages of their members, the top six International UFCW officers combined earn over $1.4 million, with huge expense accounts at their disposal. It is disgusting to ask workers who take home around $190 in pay for 40 hours' hard work to allow $35 - $40 a month in dues to be taken directly out of their pay, and then have greedy union bureaucrats live high off the hog. Miriam, who remembers the excitement that drove the organizing effort which she was a part of, says, "I hope that the workers at the other locations can maintain the solidarity and enthusiasm needed to get a good raise and that everyone remembers the power of direct action."

Between the time that workers in Chicago voted the union in and when they signed the contract, there was a 45 percent turnover, some of which was due to management's blatant antagonism towards pro-union employees. A local Chicago weekly reported in April that a worker was terminated for allegedly stealing a piece of pita bread from the in-store cafe. Where was the union for this worker? Where was the organized solidarity to prevent incidents such as this from becoming standard behavior at Borders Incorporated?

On the same day that the Chicago contract was signed, the UFCW launched a campaign calling for Borders management act neutrally when they are approached with a request for union recognition, and to drop the union-busting law firm of Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler and Krupman, which was brought on board to fight the IWW effort in Philadelphia and has been Borders' attorneys ever since. Needless to say, Borders declined to agree to these demands. While this strategy seems absurd to a union like ours which believes that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, UFCW is paying for ads in national magazines to beg for crumbs.

It stands to reason that UFCW should expect Borders to be neutral while they organize, since the UFCW has remained more or less neutral when Borders attacks its workers.

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1607 (December 1997)

As we go to press, a U.S. monitor has just barred Teamsters president Ron Carey from standing for re-election, finding him personally responsible for illegally funneling union funds into his campaign. This article was written before the announcement:

The continuing saga of the Teamsters epitomizes the bankruptcy of business unionism. While the recent strike at UPS gained extravagant plaudits from the liberal press, the narrow reelection of Teamster president Ron Carey has begun to come unraveled. Not only has Carey's victory been voided, with a new election scheduled for mid-March, but the new "reform" AFL-CIO leadership is in danger of going down with Carey as the ramifications of a massive scam become clearer.

It would be all too easy to minimize the reports of corruption leaking out into the mainstream press. After all, with the White House selling access like the peddlers of fake Rolexes on the streets of New York, perhaps we should expect the same shady maneuvers from union bureaucrats. But this would denigrate the many years of organizing at the rank and file level, as Teamster truck drivers who had become fed up with mobsters and their pillaging of union pension funds sought to regain some control over their union. Unfortunately, the final result of the Teamster reform movement has been to chuck one set of parasites for another smoother and more sophisticated set of wheeler dealers.

In 1976, Teamsters for a Democratic Union emerged from the consolidation of three small opposition groups, with Ken Paff, a socialist activist, as coordinator. While the situation seemed bleak, a huge bureaucracy with its own goon squad, there were some bright sides as well. The leadership's idea of defeating a rank and file opposition never went beyond physical threats and red-baiting. Furthermore, the Teamsters were under intensive scrutiny for their blatant connections to the Mafia. In addition, the deregulation of the trucking industry, one of President Carter's gifts to the working class, had crippled Teamster power and put wages and working conditions into a free fall.

All of this came to a head in July 1989, when a federal judge placed the Teamsters under trusteeship. The court appointed an elections officer to supervise the next two elections. At this point TDU confronted a critical choice. It could have opted to nominate its own slate of candidates, thereby presenting the rank and file with a genuine choice. Instead TDU decided to back Ron Carey, a local union president and a business unionist with a reputation for honesty. With its opportunistic decision to go for the quick win TDU became the junior partner in a new Teamster leadership.

Carey won with 48 percent of the vote when the Old Guard split its potential vote by backing two different candidates. Over his five-year term in office, Carey has moved cautiously on almost every front. A UPS contract from 1992 was signed without a strike, and with very little gained. When Teamsters were forced into a bitter strike by the Detroit newspaper moguls, Carey and the Teamster board did little, leaving the strikers struggling to survive. The best thing that can be said for the new Teamsters is that it took organizing the unorganized as a serious priority, and yet even here it relied on friends in high places to overcome employer resistance.

The old regime had been an anomaly within the AFL-CIO when it came to playing practical politics. From 1972 through 1988, the Teamsters endorsed every Republican presidential candidate but one. Although Carey had been a nominal Republican prior to his election, the nucleus of his supporters and advisors were oriented toward the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. During the 1992 Democratic convention, Clinton and Carey met privately to discuss Teamster support. This close working relationship deepened after Clinton's victory. Indeed then Teamster political director William Hamilton wrote an internal memo informing the higher echelons of the hierarchy that "we ask for, and get, on almost a daily basis, help from the Clinton administration for one thing or another."

In the spring of 1996, after more than four years in office, the new Teamsters leadership was confronted with another election. This time the Old Guard united around James Hoffa, an obscure lawyer with virtually no track record, but one very important asset, his father's name. That spring, Carey's advisors were stunned to discover that Hoffa had a very real chance of winning. Carey had failed to deliver, and the rank and file knew it. Furthermore, Hoffa was garnering large contributions.

Confronted with a crisis, the Carey camp responded with yet another maneuver. Carey's campaign manager, Jere Nash, worked with Martin Davis, a political consultant who had been acting as liaison with the Democratic National Committee, to devise a plan to funnel large sums of money from the Teamsters treasury into the coffers of the Carey reelection campaign. To hide the true source of the funds, Nash and Davis decided to arrange a series of swaps, creating paper trails showing funds moving from the Teamsters to worthy causes. The money would then flow through a network of intermediaries before flowing back to the Carey campaign, or to one of the firms handling direct mailings or telephone blitzes aimed at the Teamsters membership.

Nash and Davis were eager to cooperate with other operatives skilled in the complex stratagems needed to hide large contributions that violate election laws, and they knew just where to look. In May 1996, Davis approached the Clinton campaign with his proposal. The Teamsters would give hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic state committees, and in return the Democrats would solicit friendly contributors to divert some of their donations to the Carey campaign.

High officials in the Democratic campaign structure have been quoted as saying that there was nothing wrong with them advising wealthy donors to aid a friendly union president, and yet the election rules governing the Teamsters election were quite strict. Federal law prohibits employers from contributing to union election campaigns. Needless to say, most big time contributors to the Democratic Party are employers.

As the Dec, 10 election date approached, Nash and Davis became more desperate as Carey's defeat seemed increasingly likely. They reached out to a whole array of progressive organizations, seeking to involve them in swap schemes. The AFL-CIO leadership joined in, with a significant portion of a huge contribution from the Teamsters to Citizens Action, a consumer advocacy group interested in electing a Democratic majority in Congress, passing through the office of Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL. In addition, Trumka and other high AFL-CIO leaders are reported to have provided bags of cash to Carey campaign aides. Union leaders have the power to hire and fire, and thus are categorized as employers under the federal law covering contributions to union campaigns.

As this whole sordid mess has unfolded, Carey has steadfastly maintained that he knew nothing. Indeed he has gone so far as to say that if there is "a victim, I certainly am the victim." So far three people, including Nash and Davis, have detailed their involvement to a federal grand jury. Nash and Davis have made it clear that Carey was a knowing participant. Carey's own personal secretary has said that Carey personally approved the $475,000 contribution to Citizens Action. Carey's denials have all of the credibility of the czar's protestations in olden days. The Little Father was so busy watching out for the interests of the poor and downtrodden that he was unable to keep track of the misdeeds of his advisors.

Ultimately, it would appear that the scheme moved more than a million dollars of Teamster funds to third parties, with most of this returning to the Carey campaign. By the end of the campaign, Carey had reported spending more than $3 million, with more than one million of this total listed as coming from anonymous sources. Hoffa raised about the same amount, with $1.8 million coming from unidentified donations.

The Hoffa camp engaged in its own efforts at unethical, and perhaps illegal, efforts to raise money. Bob Wages, the president of the Oil and Chemical Workers, has stated that he was approached by a Hoffa aide, with Hoffa present, and asked to get behind the winning candidate, or risk Teamsters members crossing Oil and Chemical picket lines. When Wages asked for more details, the aide urged him to solicit firms with union contracts for contributions to the Hoffa campaign.

The Teamsters election became a microcosm of the last presidential campaign. With Carey tied to the Clinton forces, and the Old Guard looking to the Republicans, the same corrupt practices were in full swing, as both sides searched for friendly corporate contributors. All of this would be depressing enough without the vocal presence of TDU. This supposed caucus of union militants has given Carey uncritical support throughout the entire debacle.

Battered by the election scandal, Carey supporters have extolled the recent UPS strike as a milestone, the first large step in the creation of a new and revitalized trade union movement. Certainly the 15-day strike marked a significant improvement over decades of quietly accepting one concession- filled contract after another. Nevertheless, the Teamster leadership was never prepared to shut UPS down for a lengthy strike. Instead, it relied on the Clinton White House to cajole UPS from hiring scabs for long enough to disrupt deliveries to the point where the corporation retreated from most of its demands for further givebacks.

The resulting contract was not a disaster, but it was also far from a major victory. For instance, current part-timers, 60 percent of the UPS workforce, received sizable pay increases. Yet with rapid turnover and a five-year contract, the true cost of the contract hinges on the starting wage rate for part-time workers. For 15 years, and this includes the last contract signed by Carey, this rate had been stuck at $8.00. The new contract raises this rate to $8.50. A fifty cent increase represents a total gain of 6 percent over five years. Thus, the real wage of a new part-time UPS worker, allowing for inflation, will continue to fall throughout the life of this contract. This hardly represents a momentous victory.

Neither Carey nor Hoffa deserves our support. We need a very different union movement than either of these bureaucrats will promote. We also need to build opposition caucuses that stand for more than an end to wholesale corruption and the direct election of union officers. As TDU so dramatically demonstrates, without a firm commitment to a radical program, reform caucuses can deteriorate into mere apologists for the more liberal wing of the union bureaucracy. We need to project a vision of a union movement that will mobilize across industries for militant actions that can win future confrontations such as the Detroit newspaper strike. We also need to say loudly and clearly that as long as unions continue to rely on their influence with political bosses working people will continue to see their living standards spiral downward.

-- Eric Chester

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1607 (December 1997)

As with Gannett and Knight-Ridder in Detroit, employers everywhere are increasingly resorting to lockouts, production by scabs during strikes, and the permanent replacement of strikers.

Anti-labor laws like the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin Acts are unjust. They outlaw the measures we need to make strikes effective (including mass picketing, workplace occupations, secondary boycotts, solidarity strikes, and general strikes) and help shift the balance of forces in favor of the corporations.

The labor movement needs to win the right to strike by forcing the government to repeal the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin Acts and all the other anti-labor laws and to prohibit any interference in the right of workers to strike, picket or occupy our workplaces, on our own behalf or in solidarity with other workers. We need legislation that will guarantee the right to strike, and prohibit employers from hiring scabs as temporary or permanent replacement workers or operating their businesses during a strike.

One way to accomplish this is to mobilize direct action by the unions to make the anti-labor laws unenforceable, particularly organizing political strikes as necessary to back off the government.

Corporate attacks on workers

Corporations like Gannett and Knight-Ridder have tried to maintain their profitability by automating, speeding up and laying off workers in the industrial centers, gutting health, education and social welfare programs, attacking the legal rights and social position of women, racial and national minorities, and immigrants, and shifting production to low-wage regions like the southern US and low-wage countries like Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Korea and China, where repressive governments often add to the "favorable business environment."

A central problem for the labor movement is that the corporations have again made strikebreaking and union-busting key elements of their strategy, not only in poor countries and regions, where this has always been the case, but also in the industrial centers. Driven by their own competition and taking advantage of the competition among workers, the corporations increasingly are trying to crush all resistance.

In the U.S., the corporations, with government support, more and more often reply to strike threats with lockouts and to strikes with continued production by scabs and the permanent replacement of strikers. From PATCO to Hormel to the Decatur "war zone" of Staley, Firestone and Caterpillar to the Detroit newspapers, strikebreaking and union-busting are becoming the norm for U.S. labor relations.

Militant tactics still can win

There are exceptions to this pattern. Where workers are able to stop highly profitable production, even a very large corporation may decide that a lockout or strike is not worth the cost, as in the recent UPS strike and the UAW strikes at GM and Chrysler. But in most cases, if the corporation is big enough and determined enough, the traditional strategy of withholding labor in a particular bargaining unit, even supplemented by a consumer boycott or "corporate campaign," is not enough to win.

The labor movement is still quite strong, however. Key components of industry are still organized, and the unions have tactics that can win against even the biggest, most determined employers. These are the tactics that built the industrial unions in the 1930s and 1940s: mass picketing, workplace occupations, secondary boycotts, solidarity strikes and general strikes to back off the government when it tries to interfere.

If the Staley workers had been able to stop the scabs with mass picketing, occupy the Decatur plant, threaten Tate & Lyle with secondary boycotts and solidarity strikes at all its operations worldwide, and block government interference with the threat of escalating general strikes, they would have won within 72 hours. The same applies to the Detroit Newspaper strike.

Not surprisingly, all these tactics are illegal. Having been forced to make major concessions to the unions in the 1930s, reflected in the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act and the 1935 Wagner Act, the employers moved as soon as they could to outlaw the unions' most potent weapons. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and the 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act codified their key victories, supplemented since then by a stream of court decisions, administrative rulings, and arbitration awards tracing the labor moment's retreat into business unionism.

Unions today must win the right to strike by nullifying the anti-labor laws and redressing the balance of economic forces. We must learn from the employers. Their method is to divide and conquer by bringing their concentrated economic, legal, and police power to bear on separate groups of workers. They begin with the more vulnerable sectors of the working class: African Americans, Latinos, women, youth, the unskilled, the unorganized, and the unemployed. When they take on the unions, they try to limit the conflict to one bargaining unit at a time, although behind that employer stands the corporate empire of which it is part and behind that the employing class as a whole and the government that serves it.

The unions must overcome the divisions the employers exploit by organizing the unorganized, starting from the current base of industrial, government and skilled workers and reaching out to workers in the South, service workers, the unskilled, Black and Latino workers, women workers, youth, and the unemployed. We must rebuild the labor movement from the ground up, with a strong presence on the shop and office floors and active democracy in the union halls. And we must bring the power of all the unions and all the workers to bear in any struggle, making a reality of the principle, an injury to one is an injury to all.

The right to strike will be won first of all on the picket lines and in the streets. The bosses will not give up their power voluntarily. Workers will win their rights only by exercising their power. The labor movement must free itself from the illusion that it can overcome unjust laws by obeying them.

So long as the employers and the government can keep the unions fighting bargaining unit by bargaining unit and obeying the anti-labor laws and injunctions, they can continue to inflict defeats which rob us of the public support we would need to repeal the laws and end the injunctions. The unions will repeal Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin and end injunctions only by making them unenforceable.

Originally appeared in Battleground Detroit (October 1997), a publication of the Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS). Reprinted in the Industrial Worker #1607 (December 1997)

The Pacific Maritime Association is continuing its efforts to compel IWW member Robert Irminger to name each of the dozens of workers and supporters who picketed Yusen Terminal in the Port of Oakland, California, last Fall in solidarity with the locked-out Liverpool dockers. The bosses' association is also demanding the identity of everyone with whom FW Irminger communicated regarding the picket and detailed descriptions of those communications, and a list of all organizations with which he is associated.

"A lot of the information I don't have," Irminger notes. "Word got out through the radio and just through an informal network, and people just came down on their own initiative and joined in the picket line. So obviously I didn't know a lot of the people, but of course if I did know their identities I would not divulge them."

Irminger, who is also San Francisco Region chair of the ILWU-affiliated Inland Boatmens Union, served as picket captain during the three and a half days of picketing. After word got out that the Neptune Jade was due in port, several activists showed up early on a Sunday morning, meeting longshoremen with a picket line when they arrived to work the ship around 7:30 a.m.

"Ordinary workers see the sense of solidarity," Irminger told the IWW General Assembly, and so they refused to cross the line.

When an arbitrator rejected FW Irminger's contention that he was a representative of the Liverpool dockers, the longshoremen refused to cross the line on health and safety grounds. The arbitrator agreed, a ruling that was repeated several times over the next three days. But the arbitrator ruled that there was no longer a health and safety issue when police showed up in force to break the picket line.

The longshoremen still refused, "saying they do not cross picket lines with an armed escort, and especially with an armed police escort, citing the murder by police of six strikers in the 1934 maritime strike on the West Coast."

The Neptune Jade then fled for Canada, where longshoremen again refused to cross a picket line, and for Japan, with no more success, before being sold in Taiwan.

While Superior Court Judge Henry Needham has cleared most defendants of the PMA charges, he has allowed the suit to proceed against Irminger on the grounds that he bore particular responsibility for the action as picket captain. Irminger's only role as picket captain was to act as liaison with the arbitrator and police, and that he had no authority over the other pickets. He has already been subjected to hours of questioning by PMA attorneys who, Irminger says, seem incapable of realizing that informal structures exist and that he and others acted on their own initiative.

"The corporate world does not have a clue about solidarity," he said. "They think there has to be someone at the top giving orders."

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, perhaps running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Pacific Maritime Association has been turning to the courts with increasing frequency in the past two years. Part of the shippers' strategy is to engage the ILWU in as many lawsuits as possible, forcing the union to divert funds and energy to the courts.

Dockers closed San Francisco area ports for half a day July 22 and rallied at the courthouse during an attempt by the PMA to subponea documents about the picket from the ILWU. Judge Needham ruled in the union's favor three weeks later. The bosses had threatened to sue FW Irminger and other pickets during the action, but he didn't believe them.

"They don't sue you for picketing, for god's sake," Irminger said. "But they do sue you, particularly when you're effective." Dockworkers wield enormous industrial power, he noted, and "the shipping bosses' worst nightmare is the port workers working together, coordinating their efforts."

The defense campaign has drawn wide support, "highlighting the fact that you bring out the best in people when you have a militant struggle," Irminger said.

Irminger placed the lawsuit in the broader context of a global assault against dockworkers' unions over the past 15 years. Shipping bosses are privatizing ports and smashing unions around the world. Dockers are facing massive automation, speed-up and sub-contracting of support functions in an effort to break their industrial power.

The Liverpool dispute which prompted the picketing of the Neptune Jade ended with the loss of the last organized port in England. West Coast Mexican ports were privatized a few years ago, and the military occupied them when workers struck. A similar scenario developed last year in Santos, Brazil, the largest port in South America. This year's Australian strike was another battle in this war. And dockers have come to recognize that they can rely only upon their fellow workers for support in this global class war. And workers are learning their lesson.

When workers picketed the Los Angeles docks last summer to block unloading of scab cargo they had no picket captain to be sued. And ultimately the scab-loaded cargo had to be returned to Australia.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (October 1998)

Organizing dominated a packed agenda at the IWW's 1998 General Assembly in Portland, Oregon, over the Labor Day weekend. More than 87 members attended, making this year's the largest such meeting in many decades.

General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Chase reported that membership has more than doubled since the 1995 Assembly, and is up 34 percent from last year. Over the last year the IWW has chartered Industrial Union Branches in Sedro Woolley, Washington (construction), Toronto (public service), Portland (entertainment and public service), San Francisco (marine transport) and Winnipeg (general distribution). Fourteen new General Membership Branch charters have been issued, and several new charter applications are in the works.

The IWW now has members in 12 countries, with the largest concentrations in Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. There continues to be strong interest in the union in Latin America and Africa. This international growth offers exciting possibilities for building an IWW truly capable of taking on the bosses on a global level, but it also raises financial and organizational issues which the union will continue to grapple with over the next year.

Indeed, the strains of our rapid growth were evident throughout the Assembly. So many branches were represented that the time allotted proved insufficient to allow for reports on the abundant organizing and other activities now underway despite the firm but understanding efforts of co-chairs Missy Rohs and Tim Acott. More than two dozen proposed constitutional amendments and other resolutions also overwhelmed available discussion time, and an ad hoc committee was appointed to continue the process of reviewing and refining these proposals before they are presented to the membership for a union-wide vote.

The highlight of the two days was probably the talk by IWW and ILWU member Robert Irminger, who is facing a lawsuit in retaliation for his alleged role in organizing picketing of the Neptune Jade last year in solidarity with Mersey dockers. Irminger was singled out by the bosses because he served as picket captain during the four-day action. (See report above) He told delegates that IWW members played an critical role on the picket line, constituting half the pickets at one point. The recent organization of the San Francisco Bay Ports Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union 510 Branch is, at least in part, an outgrowth of our efforts to build solidarity for the Mersey dockers in their long struggle.

The ongoing drive at Skagit Pacific in Washington state was also reported on, as was the recent organization of IWW branches in Edmonton, Alberta, and Victoria, British Columbia. Fellow Workers from Austin, Texas, reported on their successful fight to force a local developer to pay some $28,000 in unpaid wages to 125 mostly undocumented workers there.

Members broke into smaller groups Saturday afternoon for more focussed discussions on organizing strategy, working within the business unions, constitutional revision, international structure, the Industrial Worker and other topics. Sunday morning, we broke into industrial meetings after nominations were completed. Maritime workers from San Francisco brought copies of their new newsletter to spark discussion. Many Wobs work as casuals on the Oakland docks, and the MTW is undertaking health and safety training to educate casuals on their rights.

Public Service IU 670 workers discussed organzing within the already largely unionized public sector, which has many legal restrictions including making strikes illegal and not being able to bargain over pay. 670ers also discussed the nature of working for private and publically funded non-profits, where workers are often expected to make wage concessions and other sacrifices for a "common good" which the bosses do not allow them to shape the vision of. Because of the nature of IU 670, it was generally agreed that the democratic principles of the IWW would be embraced by others in the industry, especially non-profit workers and government employees saddled with undemocratic or lazy unions. We will be developing literature to address this issue.

Education workers shared stories of efforts to organize their workplaces and discussed the prospects for iwwue-based organizing where there was little prospect of winning a job branch or job control in the near future. Education workers at the University of Memphis are launching a local newsletter as part of their efforts to organize the campus' low-paid workers. Other meetings brought together construction, restaurant and entertainment Wobs.

Spreading the word

A proposal by the Literature Committee to develop an indexed archive of material to better support organizing drives was approved, while a workshop on international issues proposed that the IWW return to our earlier system of regional administrations. The Radio Committee reported that the first episode of the "Soapboxing the Airwaves" show has been produced, and that several stations have agreed to air it. Future programs will be distributed on compact disk.

The Internet Committee reported on the dramatic growth of the union's online resources, which now includes six servers in three countries. While the network makes possible a much wider geographical distribution of IWW information, the burden of maintaining it falls fairly heavily on the shoulders of a few branches and individual members. FW Deke Nihilson noted that the small number of volunteers maintaining the network leaves the system vulnerable, and called for volunteers to take on a variety of support tasks ranging from helping members get on-line to more advanced technical support. Nihilson also noted the need for increased financial support, both to maintain the existing service and to enable the San Francisco Branch to secure more band-width to accomodate growing usage.

And the Organizing Strategies workshop discussed the different conditions facing organizers in the U.S. and Canada and the need to provide better training and support, particularly for first-time organizers. Participants agreed that the key to successful organizing was not winning Labor Board certification, but rather establishing a functioning union presence on the job. Even where the union remains a minority presence, real improvements can often be won through workplace struggles and the union can build legitimacy and broader support. A variety of strategies for sharing organizing skills were discussed, including regional tours, training sessions incorporated into regional meetings, and videotaped presentations on labor law and organizing tactics. Participants also discussed the need for more reflection on our organizing efforts, perhaps in the form of a regular section in the General Organization Bulletin.

Members attended from Austin TX, Boston, Butte MT, Cincinnati, Detroit, Edmonton, Eugene OR, Gainesville FL, Hawaii, Louisville, Memphis, Mendocino, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Monterey, Olympia WA, Philadelphia, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, The Dalles OR, and Victoria. Greetings were received from the British Isles, Baltimore, Greensboro NC, Lancaster PA, New York, Tacoma, and Washington D.C.

IWW members can look forward to a bulging referendum ballot next month, addressing issues ranging from a dues hike to changes in the provisions for membership eligibility to our international structure.

Members will also be asked to endorse the I-99 International Solidarity Conference being organized by fellow workers in the San Francisco Bay Area for June 1-5. The sponsors hope that the conference - open to all who agree that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, that the working class should take over the economy, and that workers must organize into unions to fight the capitalists - will replace factionalism with mutual aid, and explore the possibilities for coordinated international efforts against our common enemy, the employing class. Many other proposals were left on the table for further debate and discussion.

Nominations

Fred Chase and Alexis Buss accepted nomination for General Secretary-Treasurer. More than three dozen candidates were nominated to serve on next year's General Executive Board, and are currently being contacted to verify eligibility and to determine if they accept nomination. Nominees include: Joshua Freeze (Austin), Morgan Miller (Portland), John Persak (Seattle), Denny Henke (Memphis), Monica Berini (San Francisco), Kevin Brandstatter (Swindon), Mark Damron (Cincinatti), Fred Lee (Leicester), Nathan Smith (Asheville), Liam Flynn (San Francisco), Mike Garcia (Salt Lake City), Mickey Valis (Atlanta), Dennis Georg (Butte), Rick George (Eugene), Heather Harmon (Mendocino), Harry Siitonen (East Bay), Susan Marsh (San Francisco), Chris Wall (Seattle), Bob Rivera (Michigan), Mark Janowitz (San Francisco), Colin Dewey (San Francisco), Penny Pixler (Chicago), Hillary Yothers (East Bay), Jason Justice (East Bay), Malini Cadambi (East Bay), Jen Kortright (East Bay), Steve Kellerman (Boston), Pete Wilcox (Oahu), Robin Walker (East Bay), VT Lee (Florida), David Christian (Atlanta), Frank Devore (San Francisco), Eric Chester (Boston), Obo Help (San Francisco), Mike Reinsborough (Los Angeles), Bob Helms (Philadelphia), and David Collins (East Bay). Several other nominees declined on the floor.

Nominated to edit the Industrial Worker for the next two years were Jon Bekken, a Detroit, Michigan-based collective, and Brian Wiles (San Francisco).

Members will also choose between Memphis, Tenn., and Winnipeg, Manitoba, for the site of the next General Assembly.

On a personal note, it seemed clear to your editor that we will need to rethink how we handle our Assemblies, given our ongoing growth. Requiring that resolutions and proposed constitutional amendments be circulated to all branches well in advance of the Assembly could have made it possible to resolve many wording issues in advance, and perhaps to consolidate proposals addressing similar issues. Similarly, by more strongly encouraging advance registration for the Assembly, it would be possible to mail out agenda packets a couple of weeks in advance, so that delegates would arrive already familiar with the content of the reports and proposals to be considered. These modest changes might lead to more focussed discussion, and reduce the inevitable confusion resulting from trying to address proposals which many delegates are seeing only for the first time.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (October 1998)

During a contract negotiation session last month, management's lawyer saw fit to loudly say "bullshit" over and over while we addressed the issue of the boss' duty to bargain about pay rates and pay equity. We decided not to engage this lawyer in a cursing war, and instead called for a caucus. The workers were alarmed that the lawyer would disrespect our position in such a way, and asked me if it was legal to curse at us. And indeed it is. So long as they actually bargain the issue, the boss and lawyer can curse up a mighty storm all they want.

Then I brought up the advantage to us: we've got that right, too. Not only at the bargaining table, but our shop stewards, once a contract is in place, would have identical protections. All of a sudden folks were volunteering to be stewards so that they could exercise this very right.

I have heard many stories of stewards being suspended or even fired for insubordination after cursing or ranting at a boss during a grievance meeting. Arbitrators and the National Labor Relations Board will generally find in the steward's favor because it is generally understood that unless there is extreme profanity tied up in violent threats, workers have a right to get angry while trying to resolve a problem. Stewards do not have a legally protected right to threaten or insinuate violence, or carry out a violent act in a grievance meeting, but cursing is not in and of itself considered violent.

Here's a review of cases that refer to stewards' rights to let their temper loose on a boss: At makeup and perfume giant Max Factor, a steward called the boss a "twerp" and was protected in 239 NLRB 804.

Imagine the poor, thin-skinned, quivering boss who was so offended by being called a twerp that they had to wade through over probably two years of litigation to justify firing a steward for using the relatively obliging language.

But it gets better for our fellow workers who learned to defend workers' rights from listening to that George Carlin album with all the dirty words. In a case at the United States Postal Service (250 NLRB 4), a postal worker steward called the boss a "stupid ass" and was legally protected. A steward called a foreman a "fucking incompetent asshole" at United Technologies (274 NLRB 504) during a grievance meeting and was protected. At Consumers Power, a steward told a manager boss "I don't give a fuck who you call" when the manager said he was going to call to verify facts and was protected in 245 NLRB 183. And at Severance Tool Industries (301 NLRB 1166) a steward called the company president a "son of a bitch" and got to keep his job and smile at the S.O.B. for years after.

Related cases include Synadyne Corp., (228 NLRB 664), which articulates the steward's right to point their finger at their boss and shake it around. Call your boss a liar in a grievance meeting, and it's ok, too (Hawaiian Hauling 219 NLRB 765), apparently even if it's not true. Another case to do with heated exchanges is an additional one from our friends at the United States Postal Service which provides for a "cooling-off period" after a heated exchange (250 NLRB 4). The case says that workers should not be expected to be totally robot-like and have the ability to switch our emotions from high to neutral in a matter of seconds.

Again I must reiterate that the cases above are rights only for stewards in shops where the union is recognized and has a collective bargaining agreement - so non-union stiffs don't be confused! Cussin' for you ain't a right, it's a duty. And my advice would be that it's a duty better done under your breath when the boss is well out of hearing range. Non-union workers are employees-at-will, and cursing can be considered insubordination which can, among a million other things, get you legally fired and sometimes even denied your unemployment benefits.

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1616 (October 1998)

Just got back from General Assembly in Portland, Oregon, to face an omigod pile of mail on my desk. It could have been worse. Fellow office workers Robin Hood and Carol Igoe beat me back to General Headquarters and took care of most of what had arrived during our absence while I took an extra day to visit one of my two darling daughters who lives just across the river from Portland.

This year's assembly was another good working vacation as most of them are. I always come away inspired by the good work Wobs are doing, warmed by renewed acquaintances with those who have been at it for years and revitalized by the new acquaintances made. With 88 Wobs registering, it was one of the largest assemblies in our 93 year history. I'm told that even when our membership was in the tens of thousands assemblies were generally small delegate affairs rather than mass gatherings. The growth in numbers and in the volume of business has many of us thinking it may soon be time to go back to the delegate system and longer assemblies. The number of regional assemblies has been growing recently. Those may be a substitute for mass General Assemblies, saving participants travel time and expense.

Overall the tone of the '98 assembly was extremely positive. Participants in disputes generally treated each other with the respect due to Fellow Workers. Observers and workers at the assembly said they were impressed with our democratic process. May it always be so.

Many of us were delighted to spend an evening at a local bar where most of the musicians and comics were Wobblies. One of the few sore spots in the weekend was that nearly a dozen of the Wobs at Assembly were too young to enter the bar. When our membership was aging rapidly a decade ago we didn't have to worry about such things. Being an organization which welcomes and unites workers from their teens on up is a nice problem to have. Apologies were extended and word will be passed on to the hosts of the next assembly that we need to have facilities which are accessible to our younger members.

Information presented at Assembly indicates it has been another good year to be a Wobbly. We've been on an upswing for several years now, with each new year surpassing the successes of the previous. Since last September we've added 13 new branches, more than half again as many as we had then. Many of them are industry based rather than General Membership Branches. We find ourselves getting back to the industrial organizing structures which didn't fit too well when we were smaller. Membership has more than doubled in the past 3 years. It promises to be more than triple what it was in January of '95 by the time this year is over. The rate of growth has been doubling from year to year.

New members in Poland and Italy are forming Regional Organizing Committees. Membership and industrial organizing are on the increase in Canada and the U.K. as well as the U.S.

The advances are due to the hard work of Wobs in the field. Expanded distribution of the Industrial Worker and heroic efforts to maintain email lists and web pages have made us visible to more and more folks who thought we had died decades ago. Wobs are making contact with new members and linking them up with other Wobs to form branches. And we're synergistic. Effective activity breeds more of the same.

I'm winding down my fourth annual term in this office. As a position appropriately structured to serve the membership rather than consolidate power for the office holder, election often falls to the first volunteer. For the first time since 1993 there will be competition for the position of GST. That's good for the union. Democracy requires choices. But I can't bring myself to think of an election as putting me in competition with or opposition to Fellow Worker Alexis Buss of Philadelphia. We've been supportive comrades to each other in too many struggles in the past few years. If she gets elected I'm confident she'll do an excellent job. If I do, I'll continue to try my best. In either case I'm optimistic that the Once-again-getting-Bigger Union will continue to prosper.

The work continues. Discussion of issues have abounded on the internet since Assembly. New organizing efforts keep coming to light. New membership applications arrive with practically every report to General Headquarters from our delegates. Seldom do I go through a day without thinking it's a good day to be a Wobbly. I fully expect that the coming year will be a good year to be a Wobbly. During that year I expect to see a lot of you on IWW picket lines. And a year from now I look forward to seeing a lot of you once again or for the first time at the next General Assembly.

-- Fred Chase, General Secretary-Treasurer

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1616 (October 1998)

WHEN THE IWW builds a presence on a job site or in a specific industry it should be a very different thing than the presence of a business union. The IWW is as completely different from the other unions as night from day, and its methods and results should be just as different. With a business union, the focus is on the contract, the NLRB decision to grant bargaining power to the union. With the IWW, the whole point of the exercise is Job Control, direct worker control over the job site, taken as far and as deep as can be done. It's a different goal that implies a very different approach.

The tactics that work best for job control don't always make great copy. A strike is news. Lots of high drama and noble resolve, a dramatic sellout and a lot of suffering and human interest. A quickie wildcat strike, however, is over before you know it, gets the job done neatly and precisely with a minimum of high drama and human suffering, and makes no real story at all in the paper. Much less a slowdown, or a threatened but never carried out wildcat action that gets best results without any publicity or embarrassment. Nothing is more subtle and less newsworthy than the gradual establishment of dual power on the job. It's a total yawner to the press, and the best thing going to the workers on the job. So, you don't read much about the real Wobbly stuff, neither in history nor in the news.

The tactics that get the job done directly aren't that dramatic. Go slow. Sit down. Work to rule. The open mouth. The usurpation, through efficiency and good sense, of the functions of management, often without the boss even noticing. To run the shop well and get the work done at a safe, reasonable pace, while gradually establishing certain practices of safety, rotation of tasks, relief from boredom and repetitive motion injury, gradual lengthening of breaks, elimination of involuntary overtime - these things aren't splashy, but they get the job done. That is, if the job to get done is establishing job control for a long term better life. It's subtle, infectious and insidious - and it's a real threat to the boss and his pals all around the world.

Organize IWW on your job today and every day, for job control, for workers' power, for a better life, and let the NLRB tend to the business unions while they tend to themselves and the bosses' best interests. Job Control is the real menace to the status quo. how well does the status quo serve you and your needs?

Work for a better life. Establish workers' job control. Join us!

-- Portland IWW

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1616 (October 1998)

This is the fourth and last in a series of articles (based upon a 1990 series by Jon Bekken) offering an overview of the IWW Constitution. While the Preamble offers a concise statement of Wobbly philosophy, the Constitution spells out the structure and workings of the organization.

As we have seen, the IWW proposes to organize all workers, throughout the world, into a single organization built along industrial lines. But such an organization would be of little use to its members were it to be run by professional bureaucrats, gangsters or politicians. Thus the IWW Constitution includes a number of safeguards designed to protect the rights of all IWW members and ensure that the members continue to run the organization.

Union Democracy.

We see every day how undemocratic union structures enable union bosses to enrich themselves at the membership's expense, to impose lousy contracts and working conditions, and to terrorize anyone who stands in the way of their autocratic reign. Business unionists justify such practices by claiming they are necessary to the efficient conduct of the organization. Union leaders, they explain, are invaluable experts who deserve compensation for their special skills, and who need the latitude to pursue policies that will promote the best long-term interests of the members, whatever short-term sacrifice must be made.

The IWW membership has no patience for such pretensions, knowing full well that it is the membership upon which the organization depends for its strength. The Industrial Workers of the World exists in order to fight for democracy in our everyday life on the job. This cannot be accomplished by subjecting ourselves to dictatorship in our union.

The IWW Constitution is designed to protect against any clique running this union to suit themselves:

* No officer can be elected for longer than one year, or for more than three successive terms (unless qualified candidates cannot otherwise be found). This protects against entrenched leadership, and guarantees that all officers must regularly return to the job floor to earn their living. It also guarantees an informed rank and file, as many members will have served as officers at every level of the union. Although it is not written in the Constitution, long-standing union policy (and the state of our finances) ensures that officers are paid no more than the average pay of the workers they represent. Most officers serve with no compensation whatsoever.

* IWW officers are required to make monthly reports on their activities to the membership, including financial reports. Rank-and-file committees audit the financial records on a regular basis.

* All officers - from Branch Secretary to General Secretary-Treasurer - are elected by secret ballot on which all members they represent may vote. Any officer can be recalled by majority vote, and any 15 paid-up members can initiate a recall ballot. In addition, members are guaranteed the right to bring charges against union officers, and to appeal any decision all the way to referendum vote of the membership.

* No powers are given officers except those needed to carry out the membership's instructions. Strikes can not be called, or called off, by officers - this can be done only by the members concerned. Settlements can be negotiated only by committees of the workers involved. No IWW officer can meet with employers except in the presence of the committee, thus preventing backroom deals.

Each branch and Industrial Union has the right to choose its own delegates and officers, and to veto any organizer appointed by the General Executive Board for their jurisdiction. While the Board can visit branches and audit their accounts, it does not have the authority to impose trustees or otherwise impose its will, so long as the branch in question is conducting itself in accordance with the provisions of the IWW Constitution.

To the contrary, the membership can impose its will on the General Executive Board. The IWW Constitution provides that membership referenda and the annual General Assembly (open to any paid-up member) are the IWW's highest decision-making bodies. IWW officers are elected to implement these decisions, they cannot overturn them. Indeed, although IWW national officers and paid employees can speak during Assemblies, they are not allowed to vote.

* Any 15 paid-up members (also the General Executive Board or the Assembly) can initiate a referendum on any issue. The Constitution requires that these questions are presented to the membership for voting in a timely fashion, after proper notice so that members can discuss the issues and circulate their views throughout the union. Ballots are counted by rank-and-file members, elected by the branch(es) operating in the city where headquarters is located.

* The union's mechanism for handling union funds also protects democracy by keeping the power of the purse in the hands of the membership. The IWW rejects the "check-off" system of dues collection, where employers take union dues out of the workers' wages (just like any other tax) and hand them over to union officials. Such a system tends to discourage direct, regular contacts between union members and their elected delegates, reinforces the notion that dues are just another tax, and involves management in internal union affairs.

When union treasurers get their check from the company they rely more upon its goodwill than upon the support of the membership. After all, if management refused to issue the check, the officers would be out of a job. Without dues check-off the way dues are paid is a direct barometer of the members' satisfaction and involvement in the union (or lack thereof). Officers who don't do their job will face lagging dues payments and delinquent members.

Instead of the check-off, the IWW requires that union dues be paid directly to the delegate on the job, or the local delegate where the job is unorganized. Dues stamps are issued in exchange for all funds received. All delegates are required to report to the branch on a monthly basis and can have their accounts audited at any time.

* No mandatory assessments or dues increases can be levied except when approved by a referendum of those who have to pay them.

* Union dues and initiation are kept as low as possible. Union funds can be spent only on legitimate union expenses - they cannot be spent in behalf of politicians, for sick or death benefits, etc. The IWW has always believed that its treasury should be kept in the members' pockets. In this way we guarantee that the members can decide (though voluntary contributions) which causes they will support - and we protect against the court injunctions and fines which so often force unions to capitulate in order to save their benefit funds.

Such funds, necessary though they may be, are best kept entirely separate from union control. Instead the IWW has always insisted that workers be paid their full wages in cash, leaving them free to join mutual aid societies or to make other arrangements that are not tied to any single employer or union. This protects against injunctions and court seizures of funds, and against the common practice whereby workers lose their pension plans and other benefits when employers go bankrupt or terminate workers just before they become eligible for pensions.

* IWW members are guaranteed the right to bring charges against local or international officers, or against individual members, and to have these heard by a committee of rank-and-file members. The Constitution scrupulously guarantees the rights of charges parties to notice of the charges against them, a neutral hearing panel, and to appeal. Both charged and charging parties are guaranteed the right to appeal the outcome of any charges proceeding to the general membership.

* The IWW Constitution outlaws the sort of "amalgamated locals" which group together workers from disparate industries and localities - sometimes covering two or more entire states. It is not uncommon in other unions for workers to have to spend two or more hours travel time if they wish to attend their union "local" meetings. The IWW Constitution provides that Branch charters can be issued only when it is "feasible for their members to meet together." This prevents a small clique from avoiding membership control by creating sprawling locals so vast that few members can realistically attend meetings.

* The IWW Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, nationality, creed, color or sexual preference. Only paid officers of trade or craft unions, politicians, managers and bosses, and those "whose employment is incompatible with the aims of this union" (such as sheriffs and union-busting consultants) can be barred from membership. Otherwise, any worker who agrees to abide by the IWW Constitution is eligible for membership.

A worker-run union

The IWW is organized on the principle that working people must control, and are capable of controlling, their own organization - and ultimately all of industry. Our procedures for realizing this goal were developed over more than 90 years of activity in diverse industries and under often difficult circumstances.

Because of our insistence on union democracy and membership control, the IWW has more than once survived the arrest and imprisonment of its entire "leadership." It is easy to incapacitate an organization that is run by one person or by a self-perpetuating Executive Board - all one need do is buy off or lock up those in charge. But an organization composed of members accustomed to making their own decisions and running their own affairs is much harder to control or to crush. Such a membership guarantees democracy, by refusing to tolerate any infringement of its rights.

Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker #1616 (October 1998)

Winnipeg grocery workers go IWW

After a bit of a bureaucratic run-around from the Manitoba Labour Relations Board, the IWW's General Distribution Workers Industrial Union 660 has been certified as the representatives of the Harvest Collective grocery store in Winnipeg. Only two of 22 eligible workers voted against the union.

Management has been informed of their obligation to bargain with the IWW. Harvest workers are paid minimum wage and work part-time hours that keep them in grinding poverty.

Detroit Truckers

Detroit Wobs have signed up a majority of workers at a small trucking company, and have secured agreement from the boss to begin negotiating. They are also meeting with workers at a local restaurant, where a few Wobs were hired in only to learn that conditions were not what they ought to be and so proceeded to fan the flames of discontent amongst their fellow workers.

Aussie Wobs join fight

Members of the Melbourne IWW group joined a protest Oct. 4 in memory of Semira Adamu. The protest was part of an international day of action calling for an immediate halt to all deportations, closure of all deportation camps, and papers for everyone.

The conservative Liberal-National Party regime has been returned to national Government, but with a reduced majority to push their Goods & Services Tax on all food etc onto the electorate. Several pollies have lost office, including the infamous Pauline Hanson and David Oldfield from the One Nation Party of bigots.

The conservatives' union-busting - most spectacularly the War on the Wharfies - will continue. Civilian Conscription (Work for Dole) is to expand. The Jabiluka uranium mine on Mirrar aboriginal land will be pushed on. So more "trouble coming everyday" expected.

-- Margaret

Chicago IWW going good

Chicago Wobs joined the locked-out projectionists on the picket line again Sept. 13, picketing the Webster Place shopping center where a Loew's Cineplex is located. While Local 110 members picketed the main parking lot, Wobs held forth as the read-guard, handing out leaflets urging fellow workers to boycott the union-busters. Getting people to roll down their car windows to take a leaflet as they approached the lot was not always successful, but we did manage to hand out quite a few, and honking horns from passing motorists.

Gauging the success of the boycott is difficult as management is handing out free passes left and right, so many movie-goers are getting in for free. As of this writing (Oct. 4) there is still no end in sight.

A week later, on Saturday the 19th, we joined up with nearly 40 members and friends of the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee to picket a Hyundai auto dealership in support of striking Han Young auto workers in Tiajuana, Mexico. The Korean-owned Han Young plant welds chassis exclusively for Hyundai Precision of America. Workers have been on strike since May 22 in pursuit of their first contract, after their vote for the independent October 6 Han Young Auto Workers Union was ignored by management and the Mexican government. Hyundai is Han Young's only customer. If enough pressure can be brought to bear on them perhaps they will, in turn, put pressure on Han Young to settle with its workers.

We wound up a busy September with another "Discussions with the Wobblies" forum. The topic this time was "Art and Revolution," with Wobbly veteran and fairly well-known artist Carlos Cortez. Carlos spoke on the importance and power of visual art in getting across the revolutionary message and showed several slides of some of his poster work.

In the discussion that followed, we discussed the particular value of mural art and the respect these works of art elicit from the community, even taggers often leave these pieces alone. On the other hand, the powers that be will often go out of their way to destroy murals that challenge the status quo, as was the case with the mural on the wall of the union hall in Austin, Minnesota, which the UFCW bureaucrats had sand-blasted to wipe out all memory of Local P-9's struggle against Hormel and the UFCW. It was also pointed out that the intended meaning of images can be altered by context and text, as when billboard messages are altered by activists or when a firm appropriates an "alternative" cultural icon and turns it into a marketing tool. The turnout was half non-Wobs, and a good discussion was had.

Our next forum, Oct. 28, features Penny Pixler leading a discussion on the revolutionary potential, or lack thereof, of modern technology.

-- Mike Hargis

Loblaws stores `help' Wobs spread anti-hunger message

What was supposed to have been a short 15-minute leaflet distribution turned into a 90-minute educational event when Loblaws executives, private security and Metro Police descended on the Bathurst/St. Clair store to try to prevent customers from receiving flyers about the grocery chain's role in perpetuating hunger in Ontario.

After police threatened arrest and insisted that Toronto Action for Social Change members are all banned from Loblaws property, Matthew Behrens and Laurel Smith decided to continue their flyering on the sidewalk until darkness fell. A team of Metro police in a cruiser and police jeep, teamed with two carloads of private security and Loblaws executives, re-inforced the message that Loblaws is not interested in opening a dialogue on ending the root causes of hunger in Ontario.

As they have throughout their month-long Fast to End Hunger and Homelessness, TASC members leafletted the Loblaws store to draw connections between the corporate grocery chain's practices and growing hunger in Ontario. Those practices include glowing support for the Tories, unpaid deferred taxes of over $56 million, paying President Richard Currie in excess of $8 million in 1997, and profiting off food drives by selling at retail prices goods which people donate to the food drive.

Behrensbarely stepped into the parking lot before he was accosted by two plain-clothes security (videotaping his every move), a Loblaws executive, and Debbie Regina, Senior Manager of Loss Prevention at Loblaws, who immediately ordered him off the property. He was then joined on the sidewalk by Laurel Smith, doubling the size of the action. This threat did not go unnoticed by Loblaws, and within minutes the police jeep marked "Supervisor" for 13 division was on the scene.

"We decided that since Loblaws contributes to so many thousands of people going without supper every day in this province, that we, along with the Loblaws executives would all be a little late for supper," said Smith.

"We handed out a lot more leaflets than we expected to, a lot more people saw our message from the street, and we had some good conversations with customers who were disgusted to find police vehicles in the Loblaws parking lot defending corporate hypocrites from two people armed only with pieces of paper. Thanks to Loblaws, what could have been a disappointing and disheartening vigil turned into a really good educational event."

Loblaws has had 10 members of TASC (IWW IU 670) arrested at prior anti-hunger events, often in the middle of food drives. Among those arrested have been the Easter Bunny and three bunny helpers, Santa Claus and two elves, Robin Hood and a schoolteacher who stopped to read a leaflet after he finished shopping. All go to trial in November, December and January.

Solidarity with Han Young workers

Philadelphia IWW members joined activists from Delaware County to picket a Hyundai dealership in Springfield, Pennsylvania, October 10th. The picket was called in support of Mexican Han Young maquiladora workers, who are currently on strike because management refuses to negotiate a contract. Han Young is a contractor for Hyundai.

The Campaign for Labor Rights organized an east coast tour for Jamie Garcia Barron, a striker from the plant. During his Wob-hosted stop in Philadelphia Oct. 1st, Barron told stories from the ongoing struggle to win recognition for a union independent of the government. Government-controlled unions have attempted to raid the drive with no success, and three times workers at Han Young have voted in an independent union. When the company illegally tried to maintain production with scabs, strikers borrowed the company's fuses and stopped production. Government officials have defied federal orders and torn down strike banners, declared the strike "non-existent," and put out arrest warrants for union leaders.

Workers from the Mexican plant are returning from a solidarity visit with Hyundai workers from Korea, who also recently went on strike. The workers from Han Young have made an international appeal to hold Hyundai accountable for the conditions in the maquiladora and look forward to making solidarity links across the globe.

-- Alexis Buss

`Labor Day' in Lancaster

The Lancaster, Pennsylvania GMB made its second annual appearance at the Lancaster Labor Council/United Way Chili Cook-off. Our vegetarian tofu chili didn't win, but we got out several IWs and fliers for the Han Young Workers tour. The big hit of the afternoon was our brand-new red IWW T-shirts.

East Bay workshops

The East Bay IWW is holding a series of workshops at their office at 2022 Blake Street in Berkeley on Thursday Nights at 7 p.m. Upcoming sessions include:
October 29th - Dead Martyrs Night: a workshop/party for "In November We Remember" featuring histories of various Wobbly Class War prisoners and victims of capitalist murderers.

Nov. 12th - a discussion of the various proposals on the November IWW ballot.

December 24th - Wobbly Carol-In. We'll take to the streets and visit the hot shopping districts to sing Wobbly-ized Carols to remind shoppers of the exploitative and capitalist nature of the holiday season.

January 14th - History Workshop

Jan. 29 - Forum: What is Syndicalism?

Future workshops may include Contract Negotiations, Website Design, and Video Activism.

Regional Meeting in B.C.

The new Victoria, British Columbia, GMB is hosting a regional IWW meeting November 14 and 15th. Please contact them in regards to desired agenda, housing, etc.
The Victoria IWW can be reached at 250/360-9803, or POB 8283, Victoria BC V8W 3R9

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1617 (November 1998)

I am pleased to announce that the grave and the home of fellow worker Martin Petkus (Marciionas Petkeviczia)1 , a Lithuanian sugar worker and Wobbly who was shot to death by riot police during a sugar strike in Philadelphia, have been located.

On February 21, 1917, a strike had been going on for several weeks, led by IWW, at the Franklin and McCahan sugar refineries. The bosses at both companies were bringing in African-Americans as scabs, and each night the police would escort the scabs home from the plants, located along the Delaware River at the foot of Reed Street.

At 5:30 p.m. such a group came out and was met by about 30 strikers' wives led by Florence Sholde, 32 years old, who threw pepper into the faces of both the scabs and the police. The crowd grew and the confrontation escalated into a pitched battle of bricks and pistol shots, involving hundreds of union supporters. FW Sholde was arrested for inciting to riot (police agents supposedly had spotted her earlier in the day urging militant action at a meeting), and scores of people were injured on both sides, but Martin Petkus was killed by a single bullet in the chest and fell across a railroad track. He lived a few blocks away at 131 Tasker Street - the house is still standing today.

The news reports say that he was one of the striking Franklin workers, that he was "known among them as a giant of strength and courage," and that the police found an IWW membership card in his pocket. He was recognized by all as a leader, and accordingly his funeral was a formidable event.

Petkus' body lay in state at the Lithuanian National Hall (still standing), which was the headquarters of MTW IU #510 at that time, and on February 26th he was carried to St. Casimir's Lithuanian Catholic Church, a dozen or so blocks away, with a crowd of about 10,000 accompanying his casket. Little girls wearing red dresses sold red carnations to union supporters.

Over 200 African-American IWW longshoremen who were out on a sympathy strike walked behind their slain comrade in a group, with red carnations on their lapels. When the funeral mass was over, about 1,500 people went in a train of vehicles to Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, about five miles distant in the western suburbs. Holy Cross is on Baily Road, and our man is in "Section E, Range 9, Lot 27, Grave CR."

The grave is marked by a black granite cross bearing the names of the Wobbly martyr and a younger brother who died the following year. The inscription is in Lithuanian. FW Petkas was 28 years old.

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1617 (November 1998)

• 1libcom note - he was also known as 'Martynas Petkus'

Over the weekend of October 4-6 micro-power radio broadcasters gathered in Washington DC for a weekend of workshops, networking and action dubbed "Showdown with the FCC."
IWW members from New Hampshire, Washington DC, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee were present throughout the proceedings, in a display of the continuing networking of Wobblies in the Free Radio/Free Speech movement. Which makes plenty of sense considering the history of the free speech movement, in which the IWW played a pivotal role in the early 1900s by defying laws outlawing public speech (by "undesirables") which resulted in thousands of wobs filling up the jails to the point that the laws were changed in city after city around the country. Add to that the radio programs that IWW organizers used in Detroit in the 1930s, the recently organized IWW International Radio Network, and the syndicated IWW radio show, "Soapboxing the Airwaves," and you have a great reason for Wobs to come to DC to fight for free speech.

On Sunday, workshops were held on topics including how to work transmitters, the current legal situation, organizing strategy, public relations, and a new station being started in D.C. Afterwards, a free dinner was served followed by a Community Cabaret in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, where local performers broadcast hip-hop, tango, bluegrass, poetry, spoken word and folk music to the community over Radio Libre, 97.5 FM. The broadcast was in Spanish and English, with calls going out to garner community support for an upcoming "anti-INS raids" protest.

On Monday morning, a debate between micro-broadcasters, lawyers and FCC officials took place at the Freedom Forum, an organization in DC. Shortly afterward, the "free speech fight" and march took place, with about 200 people marching from DuPont circle to the FCC and NAB buildings, illegally broadcasting throughout, daring the FCC to make an arrest. Surprisingly, the goons who have shut down over 200 community radio stations in the past year dared not show their faces, even when the issue was brought to their front door.

This was taken as a major victory by the militant crowd of broadcasters who as a result were emboldened as they marched on to those who really pull the strings of free speech: the National Association of Broadcasters. The crowd approached the NAB building,and easily took the plaza in front despite security attempts to stop it. Amidst slogan-chanting and street theater, the NAB flag was brought down and a Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) hoisted in its place.

16-year-old Gainesville resident Boni Ramey, who came up to D.C. with the Gainesville IWW/Free Radio Gainesville contingent, was scapegoated although the flag was not in her posession. She was handcuffed while the NAB and DC police debated what should be done with her.

Meanwhile, IWW members stayed around for support while the rest of the demonstration moved along. A security goon tried to pick a fight with some of the IWW's present but was sarcastically told that a fist-fight couldn't protect corporate radio interests. The guard looked embarrassed and awkwardly walked away. Eventually Ramey was taken to the juvenille division for processing where they said she would be let go without charges.

IWW members located Free Radio D.C./D.C. IWW member Chuck Munson who gladly navigated the way to the station where she was picked up. After her rendevous with the corporate radio elites, Boni said that she is interested is interested in the IWW because of our history of fighting for Free Speech, and is currently considering joining up. The new IWW-wide radio show "Soapboxing the Airwaves" (currently on the third edition) was also promoted to interested people throughout the duration of the event, and will be featuring the event in the third edition.

Soapboxing the Airwaves can be heard on Free Radio Memphis, Free Radio Gainesville, Free Radio Twin-Cities and on the internet at http://jones.iww.org

-- X345417

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1617 (November 1998)

This squeaky old chair I'm sitting in doesn't move a lot; but some days it can be the seat for a rollercoaster of emotions. One day at the end of September I was going through the mail as usual, recording delegate reports, logging in new members. On that day we reached a new 47 year high in membership. Our numbers dipped to their lowest in 1961 after our last large shops in Cleveland left to join the CIO rather than face McCarthy-era political repression when the IWW's General Executive Board refused to sign loyalty oaths. I guess the Board members figured they owed their alliegance to their class, not to a government which would want to crush them for their ideas. Some things don't change.

The rollercoaster reached apex as I thought about our growth and increased activity in recent years. Then I opened the next letter and the rollercoaster took a dive. It was from Fellow Worker Bill Bichsel from the Catholic Worker house in Tacoma ,Washington. He was catching up on his dues and notifying me of a change of address. The new address is a federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon. Bill's going to be there for 18 months for nonviolent protest at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Bill isn't the first Wobbly to go to prison for exercising his freedom of speech. He won't be the last, another thing that doesn't seem to change much. But he's the one who's in there now; and that weighs heavy on my mind. I did some time in the early '70s for destroying selective service files, so I feel some affinity.

The U.S. government - hell, all governments - commit so many atrocities it's hard to know which ones are worth going to prison to fight. And it's frustrating to know that with a rational judge Bill would have gotten a slap on the wrist. Because he faced an irrational one he'll spend 1 1/2 years behind bars. I can feel some affinity for that too. Our sentences in the '70s were between 5 and 10 years. The next year another group did the same thing and got 1 year suspended sentences and a commendation from the judge for their actions. Ahh the vagaries of "justice."

Bill sent along some information on the School of the Americas, appropriately dubbed the School of the Assassins by its opponents. Colombia was experiencing the murder of a trade unionist every other day in the early '90s. In 1996 that number increased to 253. Of 247 Colombian military personnel cited for human rights violations, 124, 50% were graduates of the School of the Assassins. SOA training manuals advocate the use of torture, execution, false imprisonment and extortion. More than 500 SOA graduates have been implicated so far in human rights abuses. The SOA trains 900-2,000 soldiers a year from Latin America and the Caribbean. They are taught combat skills, counterinsurgency, sniper fire, military intelligence, commando tactics, and psychological operations - not to defend their borders from invasion but to make war on their own people - specifically religious leaders, labor organizers, educators, students and others working for the rights of the poor.

SOA attendees, guest speakers, members of the SOA hall of "fame" include Major Luis Felipe Becerra Bohorquez. He led a massacre in which 20 union farm workers were pulled from their beds, lined face down on the ground, and shot in the back of their heads. General Henan Jose Guzman Rodrigues allegedly aided paramilitary death squads responsible for at least 149 killings. He's in the SOA hall of fame. Etc, etc...

With NAFTA, Latin American countries import jobs that used to be done for higher wages in the U.S. and then use SOA graduates to prevent attempts to unionize. Any opposition or call for reform is likely to get the proponent killed.

So Bill Bichsel has made a good choice of where to take a stand. While I'm extremely saddened by his sentence, I'm extremely proud to call him Fellow Worker, Fellow Wobbly. Keep him in your thoughts. Paraphrasing our General Defense Committee slogan, Remember, Fellow Workers, he's in there for us. We're out here for him. Some generous Wobs have already assured that Bill's dues will be paid during his incarceration. The best tribute to Bill for his courageous stand is to work for the closing of the School of the Assassins. For some that means direct action like Bill's. Every new person who faces an outrageous sentence tweaks society's conscience just a bit more. That leads to the end of wars, to the end of segregation, soon to the end of the School of the Assassins.

If you are into petitioning government you can urge senators and representatives to support Senate bill 980 / House bill 611 to close the school. SOA Watch is planning what has become an annual demonstration at Fort Benning soon. They can be reached at 706/682-5369. Wobblies from Atlanta and Gainesville are making plans to attend.

Meanwhile, Bill, know you are in our thoughts. Being in prison for the working class is walking the picket line 24 hours a day. We're looking forward to the day when we will again see you outside on the picket line.

-- Fred Chase, General Secretary-Treasurer

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1617 (November 1998)

The average work week in the United States has been growing for years, as employers schedule workers for more and more overtime, lunch breaks vanish, and weekends increasingly become a distant memory.
In many plants, bosses have turned to 12-hour days or six- and seven-day weeks in order to increase production without hiring new workers. Even in white-collar jobs, the 8-hour work day has practically disappeared. Meanwhile, millions of workers struggle to get by on part-time work or no work at all.

There are no hard statistics on how often bosses force workers to take overtime, but overtime hours are definitely on the rise - the average worker now puts in 5 hours a week, an all-time record - and mandatory overtime is increasingly at issue in labor negotiations.

The issue has come up in several recent strikes, including General Motors, United Parcel Service, CP&I Steel and several communications companies. "Employers are attempting to force more labor out of their current employees rather than create new jobs. That's the bottom line," said labor consultant Jim Grossfeld.

Even workers who once welcomed overtime as a means of compensating for stagnating wages are getting fed up.

After 24 years of fixing phone lines, Baltimore lineman Joseph Bryant was fired by Bell Atlantic last year for refusing overtime because he needed to pick his two children up after school. "I was just trying to balance the overtime," he said. "When you've got kids, you can't just leave them."

Bell Atlantic insisted that Bryant should have hired someone to take care of the kids, so he could be available to work scheduled overtime two to three days a week. With the support of his union, Bryant won his arbitration 18 months after he was fired from his job. But workers without union contracts or the means to survive lengthy arbitrations often do not dare question their bosses' demands.

Overtime robs parents of time with their children and strains marriages. It causes fatigue, stress and other health problems. It keeps millions of our fellow workers on the streets, even in the midst of what the bosses say are good economic times. And it steals our free time - time that workers fought for in often-bloody struggles over the last 150 years.

When 35,000 members of the Communications Workers of America struck US West in August, their complaints included forced overtime that frequently meant 60-hour work weeks. Workers won a cap on mandatory overtime at 16 hours per week next year and eight hours per week beginning in 2001. The new Bell Atlantic workers' contract said they can't be forced to work back-to-back six-day weeks and, for most of the year, they can refuse to work more than 10 hours of overtime per week.

But that begs the question of why we are forced to work any overtime at all.

In France, the 35-hour work week is now the legal norm. Many U.S. workers have won union contracts setting the work week at 30 to 35 hours. Increased productivity and new technology mean that far more dramatic reductions in the work week are possible, if we're organized to demand them.

The labor movement was built on the struggle for shorter hours. It's time to return to that tradition and fight first to reclaim the 8-hour day, and then to renew the push for substantial reductions in the work week. It's our time, and the bosses have been stealing it for far too long.

Originally appeared in Industrial Worker #1618 (December 1998)