By Arthur J Miller
In the creation, life upon Mother Earth was never told that they could not journey to where the pursuit of needs or desire would take them. Many life forms depended upon the journey for their survival, the caribou, the buffalo, the whale, the salmon, flocks of many types of birds, even the human animal journeyed. In the Natural World there are no borders, no one is illegal.
Along came groups of human animals that conquered other groups of once free human animals. The conquers set marks upon paper that defined the limits of their conquest and these marks became the borders that told all of the boundaries of their of authority. The land and all life that lived within the boundaries of their authority were subject to the dictates of the authority of the conquers who became a ruling class over all within their rule. The rules of the rulers were set down on paper as laws, which defined what was legal, and what was illegal based upon what benefited the rulers. Those outside of the boundaries could only cross the borders legally if the rulers felt they would benefit from their that act, those that crossed with little or no benefit to the rulers were declared illegal. In the Natural World there are no borders, no one is illegal.
Submitted on Sat, 04/01/2006 - 8:31pm
The State of Utah is going fully corporate under a new law (HB109) that creates a new Department of Technology Services (DTS) and changes the status of all new hires to exempt or non-merit so called schedule AT employees. "AT" or "exempt" employees are different than the current "schedule B" or "career service employees" such as myself in the rights they have to their jobs and in hiring and firing decisions. The "exempt" employee status means that, "works at the will and pleasure of the employing agency and can be released from their appointment at any time without explaination or just cause."
Fellow worker Raphael C and many thousands of her co-workers coming under the rules and management of the new DTS received a threatening memo from management dated April 3, 2006. In effect this memo attempts to extort existing Utah State Information Technology Services employees to voluntarily give up their schedule B, career service employee status, moving to AT or exempt employment status in exchange for a 3 step hourly pay increase. The memo reprinted below in effect threatens existing career service employees when it states that, "There are two ways that this conversion will take place.
Submitted on Thu, 03/30/2006 - 2:10pm
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.
Statement issued by the http://www.cnt-f.org - March 29, 2006.
Three million demonstrators on Tuesday 28th March! And it was a weekday... so that's three million on strike! Both public-sector and private-sector employees realised how important it was to strike, in order to achieve the greatest number possible on the streets to express their total rejection of the CPE, and indeed of precarious labour in general. But Monsieur de Villepin remains inflexible. It is not a question any more of believing that he is acting deaf. How can he be deaf with this tidal wave of voices? So what is Monsieur de Villepin actually saying? That strikes are illegitimate and outmoded... That he cares little about the size of the popular protest. That whatever the number of the strikers, they will be always a negligible quantity.
Submitted on Thu, 03/30/2006 - 2:09pm
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.
By Julie Hyland - From wsws.net, 29 March 2006
Thousands of schools, local government facilities and transport services across the United Kingdom were closed or partially closed Tuesday as almost 1.5 million local government workers took strike action to defend their pension rights.
But from the outset, the leadership of the 11 unions involved in the dispute sought to demobilize any active participation by workers. In the main, pickets were at a minimum and any visible signs of protest were patchy and kept limited. In Manchester, England’s third largest city, the regional trade unions called off a lunchtime rally at the eleventh hour.
Submitted on Thu, 03/30/2006 - 2:03pm
Statement issued by the http://www.cnt-f.org - March 29, 2006.
Trois millions de manifestants ce mardi 28 mars ! Et c'était un jour de semaine...soit trois millions de grévistes ! Les salariés du public comme du privé ont su se mettre en grève pour être nombreux à exprimer haut et fort leur rejet du CPE et au-delà, de la précarité.
Et Monsieur de Villepin reste inflexible. Il ne s'agit plus de croire qu'il fait le sourd. Comment être sourd à ce raz de marée ? Que dit Monseur de Villepin, en clair ?
Que les moyens de grève sont illégitimes et que la grève est dépassée...Que peu lui importe l'ampleur de la protestation populaire. Que quel que soit le nombre des grévistes, ils seront toujours quantité négligeable.
