Disclaimer: Eric Lee's article is reposted here not as an endorsement for iww.org as Labourstart Website of the Year--although iww.org is a candidate, and is mentioned in the article. It is posted here to emphasize the growing impact that the Internet, labor websites, and labourstart.org have on organized labor. The Internet--while currently dominated by capitalist interests nevertheless hold enormous potential for those of us fettered by capitalism (at least 99% of humanity) to emancipate ourselves from its yoke.
On Nov. 1, Local 810 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lost an NLRB election for the roughly 300-worker transportation department of New York City internet grocer FreshDirect, LLC. The local had lost an election in 2004 for the same unit. Despite having won the support of over 100 workers who could have been organized into a powerful union presence, Local 810 abandoned the field after that election.
FreshDirect, of course, soon broke the promises it had made during the campaign. Transportation workers grew increasingly dissatisfied, and, in June of this year some of them contacted the IWW's New York City General Membership Branch. New York Wobblies mapped out an ambitious industrial campaign to line up the entire FreshDirect workforce - about 1,200 workers - along with workers in other nearby wholesale and retail foodstuffs establishments. With help from other members of New York's rank-and-file May Day Coalition, the Branch began gathering contacts and agitating for the union.
By Peter Rachleff - Industrial Worker, December 2005
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association strike at Northwest Airlines offers a window into class relations and the state of the labor movement in the United States. What we can see through that window is very grim. As key sectors of the U.S. economy continue to struggle with overcapacity, workers are being forced to bear the burden by a ruling elite which is unwilling to give up its perquisites and privileges. The lion's share of productivity increases in the past two decades have gone to capital, while workers have faced wage cuts, higher health care costs, reduced benefits, disappeared pensions, rewritten work rules, and economic insecurity. Unions have been unable to mount an effective counteroffensive against this onslaught, let alone an effective defense.
By Matt Wilson, Portland - From the Stumptown Wobbly, reprinted in the Industrial Worker, December 2005
This is a story about a situation that happened at my workplace. Ideally, this will add to a conception of what Direct Unionism is, how it exists in everyday situations, and where we can go with it as an organization. This event happened around a year ago. While some of its impacts were immediate, it took me some time to develop an analysis, and to see clearly how this tied in with the development of class-consciousness. At this point I feel that I can look back, analyze the situation and draw out some lessons.
I worked on the sunrise shift at a parcel moving company represented by the Teamsters. At this company, and in this industry in general, every package is timed out to the last minute. Every day lost in not delivering a package costs this company money. The precision of the timing and the workers' role in maintaining the schedule furthers the opportunity for strategic opposition. This was especially true on my shift where the large majority of the packages being unloaded were on the last leg of their journey. These packages are going directly from us to the trucks that deliver things to your home.
By Dan Jakopovich, London - Industrial Worker, December 2005
The recently established London IWW group, which seems to have given a new lease of life to Wobblies in the British Isles, held an IWW centenary celebration at the RampART squatted social centre in East London on 5 November. It was our first public event where the core group, which was established a few months ago, had a general presentation of its ideals, goals and methods.
The high point of the evening was a discussion on building autonomous workers' resistance in London. This was largely centred around trying to draw on previous experiences, such as the Gate Gourmet dispute (See for instance my article "Gate Gourmet: 'not over yet,'" Freedom, 15 October), that have confirmed the importance of militant rank-and-file unionism as the only promising means for annulling the present laws against solidarity strikes. The grassroots democratic model of the Workmates Collective of West London tube workers was also mentioned.
Disclaimer: Eric Lee's article is reposted here not as an endorsement for iww.org as Labourstart Website of the Year--although iww.org is a candidate, and is mentioned in the article. It is posted here to emphasize the growing impact that the Internet, labor websites, and labourstart.org have on organized labor. The Internet--while currently dominated by capitalist interests nevertheless hold enormous potential for those of us fettered by capitalism (at least 99% of humanity) to emancipate ourselves from its yoke.
On Nov. 1, Local 810 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lost an NLRB election for the roughly 300-worker transportation department of New York City internet grocer FreshDirect, LLC. The local had lost an election in 2004 for the same unit. Despite having won the support of over 100 workers who could have been organized into a powerful union presence, Local 810 abandoned the field after that election.
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association strike at Northwest Airlines offers a window into class relations and the state of the labor movement in the United States. What we can see through that window is very grim. As key sectors of the U.S. economy continue to struggle with overcapacity, workers are being forced to bear the burden by a ruling elite which is unwilling to give up its perquisites and privileges. The lion's share of productivity increases in the past two decades have gone to capital, while workers have faced wage cuts, higher health care costs, reduced benefits, disappeared pensions, rewritten work rules, and economic insecurity. Unions have been unable to mount an effective counteroffensive against this onslaught, let alone an effective defense. 
This is a story about a situation that happened at my workplace. Ideally, this will add to a conception of what Direct Unionism is, how it exists in everyday situations, and where we can go with it as an organization. This event happened around a year ago. While some of its impacts were immediate, it took me some time to develop an analysis, and to see clearly how this tied in with the development of class-consciousness. At this point I feel that I can look back, analyze the situation and draw out some lessons.
The recently established London IWW group, which seems to have given a new lease of life to Wobblies in the British Isles, held an IWW centenary celebration at the RampART squatted social centre in East London on 5 November. It was our first public event where the core group, which was established a few months ago, had a general presentation of its ideals, goals and methods.