Submitted on Sun, 01/14/2007 - 4:17am
By Eric Lee - Industrial Worker, February 2007; originally published here.
Several years ago, shortly after it was launched I looked into Google's keyword-based online advertising as a tool for trade union campaigns. I thought it seemed a really good idea, tested it, and promoted its use to unions.
Today, I think that more and more unions and campaigning organizations recognize that by using Google ads, we can send out a subversive message about corporations at a very low price to a very large audience.
Submitted on Wed, 01/03/2007 - 12:53pm
Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.
libcom.org interviews one of the founder members of the workplace group McDonalds Workers Resistance about the experiences and lessons learned from one of the UK's most important attempts at libertarian organisation in recent years.
So, who are you?
The proletarian formerly known as Funnywump.
Briefly, what was McDonald’s Workers Resistance?
It was the sexiest rebellion ever launched in a burger bar. It was a name adopted by a group of McDonald’s employees working at a restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland. We publicised MWR and encouraged workers at other McDonald’s to participate. The name was adopted by groups of workers around the UK and abroad, and the movement involved hundreds of people who didn’t previously know each other through radical politics!
Submitted on Mon, 12/18/2006 - 3:12pm
By Nacho, November 14, 2006 - Originally posted at chiapaspeacehouse.org
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
Firefight at the Camino Real
Well, they had guns at least, and fired around 40 shots at us (a group of about 100, mostly Oaxacans) who had just taken, occupied, and searched a fancy hotel in central Oaxaca City. There may have been some shots from our side, but most of us -- unprepared for the news that the hated governor might actually be inside Oaxaca City, and inside this hotel -- had only thick sticks, expropriated police billy clubs, or just a little solidarity in our hearts.
The result: two wounded (on our side), several beaten (on our side), and two kidnapped (first quickly beaten, then shoved into cars). The battle took maybe 1 minute.
Submitted on Mon, 12/11/2006 - 3:52am
IWW Staff Report - Industrial Worker, January 2007
As Christmas approaches, 11 workers at the Scottish Parliament face broken contracts and unemployment in the new year, courtesy of the self-proclaimed champions of the Scottish working class, MSPs Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne.
They are both Members of Scottish Parliament, Sheridan being the only candidate for the Scottish Socialist Party elected when the parliament was founded in 1999, and Byrne one of five more who joined him after the second election in 2003.
Their party has been torn by a bitter dispute, centred around Sheridan's leadership, and a legal action he took against the News of the World when the paper made allegations about his private life. The rancour ended in Sheridan and Byrne's resignation from the SSP to found a new party called Solidarity.
Submitted on Wed, 11/29/2006 - 2:44pm
The meeting of Starbucks' CEO with Ethiopia's Prime Minister has not changed the company's mind on a licensing agreement which respects the cultural heritage of coffee farmers. Starbucks says the coffee farmers don't need the licensing agreement just like baristas don't need a union- because the company is already so magnanimous. Tell that to coffee farmers living in brutal poverty and baristas struggling to make ends meet often without health care. More information about the proposed agreement is available on Oxfam's website: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/coffee/starbucks. Please take a moment to register your distaste for this extreme corporate greed from Starbucks: http://starbucksunion.org/node/1127