Submitted on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 4:23am
The massive federal give-away to private banks and insurance
companies has sparked protests across the political spectrum. Recently, some members of the far-right Libertarian Party have sought to make common cause with the left around these issues.
Do we really have grounds to work together on these issues?
John Reimann, Communications Officer for the SF Bay GMB of the IWW will present a socialist viewpoint vs. the viewpoint of the Libertarians as presented by E. Wayne Johnson, Libertarian Party member and former candidate for Urbana City Council. on the radio on Saturday, June 20 at 11:30 a.m. Central time. The show will be hosted by the IWW's own David Johnson, also from Champaign, IL on WEFT*
radio.
Fellow Worker Johnson hosts a regular "Labor Hour" show on WEFT at this time. It can be heard online at:
WWW.WEFT.ORG.
Saturday, June 20, 11:30 a.m. Central Time.
WWW.WEFT.ORG or, for those in and around Champaign/Urbana IL on the radio at 90.1 FM.
Disclaimer: The IWW members on this radio show are representing their own viewpoints and not speaking in any official capacity for the IWW.
Submitted on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 7:45pm
By Adam W. - Industrial Worker, January, 2009
Much
has been said in the United States labor movement around the Employee
Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill many mainstream leaders tout as the
solution to the decline of unions. With the recent election of Barrack
Obama and the Democratic Party holding the majority of seats in both
houses of the US Congress, these same leaders have their hearts set
that their millions of dollars in campaign contributions will pay off
with the passage of the bill.
The
meat of the EFCA would amend existing labor law in the US to allow
unions to gain official recognition in a workplace through a majority
of workers signing authorization cards and avoid the perilous and
employer-dominated election route. Once a union is certified, employers
have to begin sitting down with the union within ten days. If no deal
is reached government mediators can force employers to sign a first
contract, even without the vote of workers. The EFCA also would
drastically increase the penalties companies face for violating workers
rights, such as with firing workers for organizing, which happen at
record rates in the US compared to the rest of the industrialized
world. Workers could receive up to three times the back pay owed and
companies could be fined up to $20,000 for willful or repeated
violations.
What
are members of the IWW to think of this? We are a small but growing
international union with a vision of a completely different world. Not
the vague change promised by both sides in the US presidential
elections, but a world without bosses, where everyday workers are in
the driver’s seat, and where hopes and dreams for a better world can
truly be realized. Will the passage of the EFCA move us closer to our
vision of a new world? There is certainly a great deal of hope in the
change that the EFCA could bring, but I think we need to look more
critically whether substantial change will come even if the EFCA should
pass.
Submitted on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 2:08am
Practically every state, county and city in the country is in fi nancial crisis and the plan is to make you pay for it. (for details see attached PDF)
This crisis is actually getting worse, and all these projected defi cits will probably continue to increase. If allowed to pass, these cuts will only get worse. Other cities in the area and most states in the country face similar or worse deficits.
We do not have to be the victims! There is a solution!
Right now, the federal government has committed some $7 trillion to bail out banks, insurance companies and even the auto industry.
And many of these banks, they won’t even tell us, the taxpayers, how they are spending that money. This is our money and we have every right to say how it gets spent!
If the federal government can bail out Corporate America, then they can bail out “public America”. The unions should all get together and call mass public meetings to organize a campaign to demand that federal bail-out money be used to eliminate the budget defi cits of our cities, counties and states.
- No cuts in services, public jobs or pay of public workers and retirees
- Use federal bail out money to make up the budget shortfalls
Who we are:
The Industrial Workers of the World is a union that currently represents several different workforces. We have a long, revolutionary tradition in American’s labor movement. We do not seek to compromise the interests of workers to benefit the employers. We want to work with the rest of the unions and with all workers’ organizations to launch this campaign:
IWW-Represented Workplaces:
- Buyback Recycling (Berkeley)
- Curbside Pickup (Berkeley)
- Shattuck Cinema (Berkeley)
- Stonemountain & Daughter retailer (Berkeley)
The IWW is also conducting a nation-wide organizing campaign at Starbucks, as well as other organizing drives nationally.
Submitted on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 6:30pm
Union and Ecology Center Sign Contract The "non-profit" Ecology Center, under contract with the City of Berkeley, runs the Curbside recycling pickup program in that city. We, the IWW, are the representatives of these workers. The economic (wages and benefits) portion of this contract expired on Jan. 1 and we have been in negotiations for the last several months (up until today operating on a contract extension).
Basically, the position of the Ecology Center (EC) is that because
the City of Berkeley is having a budget crisis (as are almost all other cities), that they could not afford a decent raise and, in fact, had to reduce the level of health benefits. They also made the claim that since they are a non-profit that we should regard them differently. Neither the workers nor the Union was buying this. This is especially so because they refused to give us the figures for how much it costs to run Curbside and, therefore, how much of the contract with the
city they are creaming off of the top to finance other EC operations and salaries.
Their offer ended up as being a 3% wage increase plus a payment of $2,000 per year into each worker's 401(k) plan. In addition, family members of the workers would be covered by the health plan before
they have been up until now. This was an improvement over their original offer which did not include the $2,000 payment but did include a demand for a significantly worse health care package.
Submitted on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 8:15pm
The cameraphone videos which have surfaced on
YouTube seem like a scene out of some futuristic movie. But the cold-blooded murder is all-too real, and is one more tragic body in the capitalist carnage that is already hundreds of years old.
Police brutality and racism are just as much parts
of capitalism as the real estate brutality that we are all facing. The ruthlessness and seeming irrationality of the BART murder is no different that that of
a broker who evicts a family that can't pay their mortgage. Capitalism
is
the only social system that sees overproduction as a problem -- when
too many people have homes, they must be evicted until houses become profitable again. It is the same with us the workers, who have to
sell our labor to live and can only live as long as we can sell our labor. Capitalism has always seen us, not as human beings, but just as one
more thing to be bought and sold. This is why it has been starving the workers, especially those from ethnic minorities, in all the
industrial cities of America for the last thirty years. It is the same kind of
"market adjustment" that is happening with houses right now. They are both done with the same ruthlessness and they both require armed
thugs called police.
The capitalist media will claim that this is a case
of particularly bad cops, just as they claim that the economic crisis comes from bad
bankers. But bad cops and bad bankers will always exist as long as there are
cops and bankers, and there will always be cops and bankers as long as we allow ourselves to be robbed at work, as long as those who rob us
need men in ties to invest their stolen wealth and thugs to protect it.
Also, since our exploiters are only a tiny minority of society, they must divide up the majority. In the US, this , this means racism first and foremost. As Malcolm X said, "You can;'t have capitalism without
racism."
To get rid of a system that relies on murderers, the
workers of Oakland and the entire world have to develop a revolutionary form of
unionism, one that recognizes the inherent opposition between workers and
bosses and which wants to end exploitation. The Oakland General Strike of
1946, and the workers occupation of Republic Windows in 2008 both give us a glimpse of how powerful we really are.
We want to express our deepest condolences to the
family and friends of Oscar Grant, and on the issue of this police execution, we call for
the immediate arrest of the police involved on charges of first-degree murder.