Submitted on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 4:57am
iu530
Members of the IWW call on North American
truckers to unite together and shutdown on May 1, 2008.
Drivers in North America move the goods
that make the economy work. They are treated like nothing by those
who depend on them, the companies and the government. They have been
used and abused. They have sucked dry by the economic powers in order
to create profit that they never see. For many the rates have not
increased in years, except after the 2004 Intermodal strikes, and now
increasing fuel prices are taking money
North American OTR drivers are
exploited by the brokers. The brokers are clearly running a racket
that claims their drivers are independent businesses with their own
decision-making powers. But it is obvious that they are deferring the
risks of their own enterprise onto unsuspecting drivers, who cannot
pay the minimum of expenses to operate.
Submitted on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 1:40pm
The International Solidarity Commission of the Industrial Workers of
the World is sending a delegation of five workers to Haiti to meet with labor groups and observe conditions in the country. We'll be there from April 23 to May 5, 2008. This blog will record the delegation's experiences and impressions.
The link to the blog is iwwinhaiti.blogspot.com. Check it regularly for updates!
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 - 1:15pm
Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.
By Barbara Ehrenreich - The Nation, April 7, 2008
Until the beginning of this month, Americans seemed to have nothing to
say about their ongoing economic ruin except, "Hit me! Please, hit me
again!" You can take my house, but let me mow the lawn for you one more
time before you repossess. Take my job and I'll just slink off somewhere
out of sight. Oh, and take my health insurance too; I can always fall
back on Advil.
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.
