Submitted on Thu, 09/09/2010 - 2:25am
Note: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were IWW members at the time of these events in 1990.
By Kevin Fagan, Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle - September 8, 2010; Reproduced in accordance with Fair Use Guidelines.
It's an infamous case that never seems to go away, even after millions of dollars have been paid out in civil settlements and police say the trail has gone cold.
The case is the 1990 bombing in Oakland of Earth First environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, who were nearly killed when a nail-studded explosive device blew up in their car.
Nobody was ever charged with the attack, and now, two decades later, the FBI wants to destroy the last bits of evidence it has been storing ever since the investigation dribbled dry - remnants of the bomb and one like it that blew up in a North Bay town a few days earlier.
Not so fast, says Cherney, 54, who has never given up trying to solve the case himself.
Saying in court briefs that the evidence "provides the last best hope for learning who bombed Judi Bari," Cherney and his lawyers were in federal court Wednesday in San Francisco to try to force the FBI to turn the evidence over to them so they can run DNA and other tests on it.
Submitted on Sat, 08/07/2010 - 2:53am
The following Resolution was adopted by a unanimous voice vote at its August 2010 General Membership Branch Meeting held Thursday, August 5, 2010:
[Begin]
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) acknowledge that police violence is a tragic yet common occurrence in working class communities and for people of color. A notable example took place January 1, 2009, when BART police officer Johannes Mehserle brutality shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant without justification. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and will be sentenced November 5, 2010.
The IWW firmly rejects police violence and stands beside the family and friends of Oscar Grant. In recognizing that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ the IWW is in solidarity with organized labor and members of the Bay Area community who seek justice for Oscar Grant and jail for Johannes Mehserle.
Furthermore, the IWW strongly supports the planned demonstration by labor and community groups Saturday October 23, 2010 at Oakland City Hall and joins in the call to ‘jail killer cops.’
[End]
Note: The original call out was made by ILWU Local 10,
AFL-CIO
Submitted on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 11:36pm
On December 8th, FW Vale Ray Jessop died in an industrial accident, while at work. Below is one obituary for the Fellow Worker, and a link to an article about the accident.
On the 6th December Fellow Worker Ray Jessop of Hull was killed in a workplace accident. Enquiries are continuing into the circumstances of Ray's death, but evidence is emerging that the cost-cutting policies of his employer, Kier, played a large part. It will be some time before a formal inquest takes place, but I have heard that UCATT, of which Ray was a member, is seriously considering making a case for a corporate manslaughter prosecution.
Although Ray was not well known in the OBU he was a loyal member and supporter of our union which he joined in 2002. He was not a passive member of UCATT and spoke out against managerial abuses. Workmates had tried to persuade him to take the shop steward's position, but he declined as he did not feel that he was the right person for that task.
Submitted on Sun, 11/15/2009 - 7:39pm
November 15, 2009
Fellow Workers,
Ottawa's police and prosecutors know that panhandlers are
an easy target. They have no money and little support.
This is why panhandlers themselves organized the IWW Ottawa Panhandlers Union in 2004. Since then,
panhandlers have been pushing back! And they have noticed the difference.
Police know that harassment of union members now has consequences.
Pressing charges against organizer Andrew Nellis was a way of trying to immobilize the organization. By
withdrawing the charges, the City admitted it had a weak case. But it also knew
that Fellow Worker Nellis was saddled with legal fees he could not pay on his
own for a case that never even went to court.
We cannot allow the
authorities to use the costs of defending oneself in the legal system as a
weapon against the poorest and most marginalized members of our working class.
We need 100 IWW and GDC members to stand up and
send $10 to pay the legal defense of our organizer, Andrew Nellis.
Be one of the 100 to say that our union stands strong in the defense of the
working class on the street.
Submitted on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 11:58pm
The University of Ottawa
fired Denis Rancourt, a physics professor, renowned researcher, and IWW member
on March 31, 2009, while he
was speaking at an academic freedom conference in New York
City.
The university sought to dismiss him on the basis that he had
awarded high grades to a graduate level physics class, which Rancourt says he
did in order to remove competition and performance as they are obstacles to
learning. The university claimed that Rancourt’s marking damaged the
institution’s credibility as an academic institution.
Rancourt has said that the university’s board fired him
before an April 1 deadline to submit a legal brief in his defense and that it
ignored his submission of his students’ exams as proof that he was evaluating
students properly. The university disregarded the union’s collective agreement
and the grievance procedure by firing Rancourt without allowing him due process
in his defense.
The Association of Professors (APUO), a registered trade
union that represents university faculty, has announced it will launch an
inquiry and it will likely appeal the firing in court.