Submitted on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 6:59pm
La Comisión Internacional de Solidaridad de los Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo envía su solemne y sincera condolencia este día de conmemoración el 28 de abril a los queridos de todos los trabajadores que fueron matados mientras trabajaban. También queremos expresar nuestra solidaridad con todos los trabajadores que fueron heridos en el trabajo. Sobre todo, querríamos enviar una pésame profunda a los amigos y la familia de nuestra trabajador compañero Ryan Boudreau; un mensajero de bicicleta y miembro del Sindicato de Mensajeros de Chicago del IWW cuya vida fue perdida trágicamente en un accidente fatal en el 13 de agosto de 2007.
Submitted on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 2:58pm
Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Staughton Lynd - WORKING USA, March 2008
What is the problem? What needs to be set right? The mother of all wrong solutions is card-check voting, which would give more access to unorganized workers for the same top-down unions, with the same unaccountability to the membership because of the dues checkoff, with the same ever-readiness to give up the right to strike. Equally misguided in my view is the notion that Taft-Hartley represented a decisive turning point and that its repeal would release the original pristine impulse of the Congress of Industrial Organizations to flower again. All major trade union leaders beginning with John L. Lewis have devised means whereby workers would give up the right to collective self-activity embodied in Section 7 in exchange for a mess of pottage. So we, labor lawyers and labor historians, can only begin to be useful when we forego our endless apologies for the latest hoped-for "progressive" union leader. Our task is to envision an institutional" "embodiment of the class self-activity discovered and imagined by E.P. Thompson and colleagues and partially realized by the IWW in work that desperately needs updating."
The new worldwide movement against "globalization," meaning, U.S. imperialism, and for a better day, has come up with a defining slogan: Another World Is Possible. The words remind us that a social movement is unlikely to bring about what it does not even try to achieve. Current efforts to revive the labor movement in the U.S. define their objectives so narrowly, that even if successful, they would not change anything fundamental.
Submitted on Sat, 04/12/2008 - 1:59pm
A group of Latino workers, at the Twin Cities-based D’Amico’s & Sons restaurant chain have organized and taken direct action to resist being fired for receiving “No-Match” letters from the Social Security Administration. The workers many who have well over a decade of service for the company have been joined by family members, some co-workers, the Workers Interfaith Network (WIN), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Twin Cities General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) and others.
D’Amico’s announced that Monday, March 31, 2008 would be the last day of work for 17 employees who had received the “no-match” letters. This appears to be illegal as the Social Security’s “no-match” notices explicitly state that employers should take no “adverse action” against employees based on these letters. “No-match” means a problem has been identified with a worker’s name and social security number not matching. Sometimes this can be due to immigration status, other times a simple typo can trigger the letter. In any case, the legal precedent has been that it was up to employees to correct the issue and not employers. A California Federal Court halted attempts by the Bush administration to penalize employers for having workers with “no-match” letters.
Submitted on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 2:44pm
For Immediate Release: Brandworkers International
Contact: press (at) brandworkers.org - April 7, 2008
Giorgione Drops Wild Edibles Amid Escalating Labor Dispute
Immigrant Workers Seeking to Improve Large Seafood Company Score Another Victory
New York, NY- Employees at Wild Edibles have chalked up a gain in their effort to win unlawfully withheld overtime pay and a voice at work with the decision of highly-regarded Italian restaurants, Giorgione and Giorgione 508, to refrain from purchasing Wild Edibles seafood until workers' grievances are fairly resolved. Giorgione joins leading New York restaurants including Pastis, Union Square Cafe, La Goulue, Mermaid Inn, and Sushi Samba that have previously pulled out of Wild Edibles over concern for the treatment of employees there.
Submitted on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 4:29pm
Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Amy Zimmer - Metro New York, APR 4, 2008
MANHATTAN.
The lawsuits against Starbucks — still steamed from a recent ruling by
a California judge ordering to pay more than $100 million in tips and
interests to baristas — are frothing over.
Jeana Barenboim, 22, a former barista at a Forest Hills
Starbucks, filed a federal lawsuit against the coffee giant yesterday
in the Southern District of New York. A similar suit was filed last
week in Boston.
Like the California case, these former baristas claim they were forced to share tips with shift supervisors.
