Submitted on Thu, 09/20/2007 - 3:50am
Disclaimer - The following is not an IWW campaign, it is featured here because it has relevance to current IWW organizing efforts. The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Joseph Plaster - San Francisco Bay Guardian, Wednesday September 19, 2007
It's a thin, seemingly innocuous letter. The Social Security Administration mails it when names and Social Security numbers don't match on an employee's I-9 form. The intent is to make sure workers receive their benefits.
But unions and immigrants have long charged that unscrupulous employers use SSA "no match" letters to harass undocumented workers and squelch union organizing efforts. Now, after a failed immigration debate in Congress, the George W. Bush administration wants to pass a regulation that would explicitly turn the letter into an immigration enforcement tool.
Submitted on Sat, 08/25/2007 - 12:32pm
Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Nicole Hill, Christian Science Monitor. Posted August 22, 2007.
Weren't employers who lose access to cheap foreign labor supposed to start paying Americans fair wages?
Picacho, Ariz. -- Near this dusty town in southeastern Arizona, Manuel Reyna pitches watermelons into the back of a trailer hitched to a tractor. His father was a migrant farm worker, but growing up, Mr. Reyna never saw himself following his father's footsteps. Now, as an inmate at the Picacho Prison Unit here, Reyna works under the blazing desert sun alongside Mexican farmers the way his father did.
Submitted on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 12:06pm
By "Static" - Fort Worth Weekly, Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Jerry Lobdill begs to differ with Static’s description of what happened at city hall last week when a group of local activists asked the Fort Worth City Council to go on the record in favor of impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney. In fact, “beg” is too weak a description. A vein probably starts throbbing at the side of his head when he thinks about it.
His objections and those of others who were there? Let’s see — the four or five Industrial Workers of the World folks (Wobblies) in attendance weren’t actually part of the impeachment group. They didn’t wave any red or black flags in council chambers or come up to the lectern to talk about abolishing capitalism. (Please, not before Static’s next paycheck clears!) The speaker described as a veteran of several tours of duty in Iraq served in the first Gulf War, not the current conflict. And that’s just for starters.
Submitted on Thu, 08/23/2007 - 12:39pm
A Book Review of “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” by Nancy Davies
By Paul Bocking
- The Industrial Worker, August 23, 2007
The popular uprising in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca was one of this country’s biggest untold stories from 2006, a precipitous year full of protests, strikes and repression across the nation. The People Decide is a diary-like compilation by Nancy Davies of day to day first-person news stories chronicling the movement led by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) and the state local of the national teacher’s union, for the ousting of an authoritarian governor and the creation of a truly democratic society led by the poor Indigenous majority. Davies is an American retiree who has lived in Oaxaca for the past eight years. These reports on the struggle unfolding around her were published online at narconews.com in English, and subsequently translated into Spanish and other languages.
Submitted on Sat, 07/21/2007 - 4:40am
Submitted by sparrow, x326388
"We actually don't have any other way to exercise (international) pressure except calling our friends and supporters in the trade unions around the globe to call for this Boycott and Divestment." stated Manawel Issa Abdellal,(see photo) member of the Executive Committee of the 250 thousand member Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in a recent speech to labor movement supporters in San Francisco.
"Factories actually exist inside the settlements and their products are going to the markets in Europe and in the United States. The whole world is saying these settlements are actually illegal settlements. So why would it be wrong to boycott them?"