'One Big Union' Still Relevant Today

x344543 — Sun, 29 May 2005 21:14:06 +0000

By John Nichols - The Wisconsin Capital Times, May 12, 2005

Six baristas at the Vox Pop coffee shop in Brooklyn went Wobbly in March.

When the people who make lattes and sell books at the shop joined the New York City Retail Workers Union Branch 660 of the Industrial Workers of the World - the Wobblies - they linked up with a union that is celebrating 100 years of radicalism.

There are not many unions that go out of their way to organize workers at independent coffee shops and bookstores these days, and there are even fewer unions that young people think of as cool. But the IWW has always stood out from the rest of the union movement.

Formed in 1905 by the likes of Mother Jones, Eugene Victor Debs, Big Bill Haywood and Lucy Parsons, the IWW declared from the start that it would stand "upon the basic principle that the way to unite the workers is to organize them as a class, upon class interests, and not for the purpose of securing for the present a paltry few crumbs from the table of Capitalism to a privileged few within the pure and simple unions, but that all may enjoy the fruits of their industry and the fullness thereof."

Kids in the Thrall

webadmin — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:58:51 +0000

Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young - You make chump change. And Congress likes it that way; By Anya Kamenetz - Village Voice, March 18th, 2005.

Just off Coney Island Avenue, in Ditmas Park, among the car washes and Pakistani sweet shops, there sits a lefty coffeehouse that seems to have dropped in from Williamsburg or maybe Seattle. Inside, the walls are painted an inviting shade of yellow; undulating, handmade bookshelves feature local zines. One of the store's bestsellers is America (The Book), by the creators of The Daily Show. A small latte is $3, 10 cents less than at Starbucks.

Vox Pop, as the café is called, is the anti-Starbucks in more ways than one. On March 1, its six employees, led by 18-year-old Emmy Gilbert, announced that they had joined the Industrial Workers of the World's NYC Retail Workers Union, IU 660. "Vox Pop workers decided we wanted to take the shop's motto of democracy to its fullest extent," Gilbert said. "And the IWW doesn't think organizing retail is futile."

Sander Hicks, who opened Vox Pop in November, may be the first boss to summon the revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist forces on behalf of his own workers. He is best known as the founder of Soft Skull Press, the respected underground imprint; the café-bookstore is a physical extension of his ideals about politics and community. After consulting with the IWW, Hicks settled on a starting wage of $10 an hour. "If we pay people $6 an hour we're going to get a low level of job love, people stealing from you, attacking customers," he says. "How can we not afford to pay more?"

Industrial Workers of the World - Vox Pop

'One Big Union' Still Relevant Today

Kids in the Thrall