Submitted on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 12:13am
Franklin Rosemont, celebrated poet, artist, historian, street speaker,
and surrealist activist, died Sunday, April 12 in Chicago.
He was 65 years old. With his partner and comrade, Penelope Rosemont, and lifelong friend Paul Garon, he co-founded the Chicago Surrealist Group,
an enduring and adventuresome collection of characters that would make
the city a center for the reemergence of that movement of artistic and
political revolt. Over the course of the following four decades,
Franklin and his Chicago comrades produced a body of work, of
declarations, manifestos, poetry, collage, hidden histories, and other
interventions that has, without doubt, inspired an entirely new
generation of revolution in the service of the marvelous.
Franklin Rosemont was born in Chicago on October 2, 1943 to two of
the area’s more significant rank-and-file labor activists, the printer
Henry Rosemont and the jazz musician Sally Rosemont. Dropping out of
Maywood schools after his third year of high school (and instead
spending countless hours in the Art Institute of Chicago’s library
learning about surrealism), he managed nonetheless to enter Roosevelt
University in 1962. Already radicalized through family tradition, and
his own investigation of political comics, the Freedom Rides, and the
Cuban Revolution, Franklin was immediately drawn into the stormy
student movement at Roosevelt.
Submitted on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 12:45am
By x359209 - IU 560 Job Shop (dual card CWA)
IWW/CWA dual-carders in the heart of the struggle
At midnight April 5, 2009 contracts for most of the component groups represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at the
telecom giant AT&T have expired. After weeks of mobilizing, around 90,000
workers are poised to strike one of the largest and most profitable
multinational corporations. A job action by CWA would be the largest and among the
most significant labor action in the United States since the UPS strike in 1997. It would also be the first major strike under the Obama regime.
The brewing confrontation could set the tone for class struggle in the
U.S. for the near future.
Attack on Healthcare
AT&T has been pressing hard for major concessions from its call
center, billing & ordering, and technical workers, especially in the area
of health care. The company is demanding harsh cost shifting in the form
of premiums and huge deductables for current employees and even steeper
cuts for “second tier” workers hired going forward. AT&T is also
demanding concessions in areas of seniority, over-time, and discipline. Raises
would be replaced for the first two years by one-time lump payments.
Billions in Profit
AT&T corporate PR hacks have been spinning that healthcare must be
reduced to avoid a repeat of what has happened to the U.S. auto industry. But
AT&T is not General Motors. It is in a growing, innovative industry - one
where AT&T bosses made $12.9 Billion in profits in 2008 alone. Besides, the
U.S. healthcare crisis and its skyrocketing costs are not the fault of
workers and their families and we should not be made to shoulder its burden. Workers at AT&T are furious that such a rich company would attack
their families’ access to healthcare.
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.
Submitted on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 9:25am
Headlines:
- General Strike in the French Antilles
- For Labor Solidarity with the NYU Student Occupiers
- Australians Rally in Support of 7-Eleven Workers in Geelong
Features:
- Colibri Workers Fight for Pay and Dignity
- Western Australian Miners Struggle
- Russian Union Defies Threats at Ford Plant
Download a free
PDF copy of
this issue.
Submitted on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 10:03pm
The University of Ottawa
in Canada is planning to fire Denis Rancourt, physics professor, IWW member, and renowned
researcher, today, March 31, 2009 .
The university claims it is firing Denis because he
announced that all of his students would get A+ grades on the first day of the
physics class so that they could get on with learning, rather than compete and
perform for grades. The university claims this educational approach damages its
reputation and credibility as well as that of its students. In short, grades
equal credibility.
The IWW General Defense Committee Local 6 (GDC Local 6)
rejects this pretext as an exaggeration that does not justify the university’s
repressive approach, which is a threat against academic freedom and education
workers’ rights.
More information about Denis’ case is online at the Academic
Freedom and Governance at the University
of Ottawa weblog http://www.academicfreedom.ca/
