Industrial Workers of the World - Educational Workers Industrial Union 620

Official Endorsement of Voz: Workers’ Rights Education Project by the PDX IWW

x344543 — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 00:03:57 +0000

Portland IWW - August 15, 2017

The Portland IWW is proud to endorse Voz: Workers’ Rights Education Project. Founded in 2000, Voz has been connecting day laborers to work, supporting worker-led organizing, and offering trainings.

Voz is a worker-led organization that gives power to immigrant workers that may not otherwise have the means to organize and bargain for humane working conditions and fair wages. Having the ability to organize and fight for these universal goals gives immigrants the ability to work, to better empower and enrich their communities and lives.

The Voz: Workers Rights Education Project is currently campaigning for their Building The Dream campaign, petitioning the city of Portland for the rights to purchase the property at 240 NE Martin Luther King JR Blvd., to provide immigrant workers and day laborers with a place to meet potential employers, discuss the conditions of their labor, while having the choice to sell their labor to whomever they believe will give them the respect that they deserve.

As such, Voz requires support from community organizations to help them fight for these rights, and to show the city of Portland that the community stands with them and will help defend the exploited and under-privileged workers that move our city and society forward. The Portland Industrial Workers of the World has long worked alongside the VOZ: Workers Rights Education Project and firmly believes that day laborers – like all workers – should have secure sites from which to organize and direct their own labor.

Wobs “instrumental” in getting worker’s job back

x344543 — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 05:49:45 +0000

By 6eoff - Boston IWW, January 25, 2016

Pictured are MISU’s John P (recently reinstated), Evan and John M, as well as Genevieve, Geoff, Max and Jon from the Boston IWW.

IWW members returned to aid our friends and fellow workers in the Museum Independent Security Union on 1/23/16. Despite freezing temperatures, our hearts were warmed by a message from John M of MISU, who conveyed his belief that IWW support was “instrumental” in getting unfairly-fired MISU member John P re-hired with no discipline and with back pay. John P was fired by Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts merely for fulfilling his responsibilities as a parent. The outcry that followed (which Boston wobs are proud have helped with) compelled the museum to take John back. The MFA has been forcing working parents out of their jobs and taking a hard line in contract negotiations with MISU, and the battle is not over yet. Please join the Boston IWW and MISU for pickets at the Museum of Fine Arts, Saturdays from 12-2 pm.

Workers Power Against Police Brutality and Racist Terror

x344543 — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 05:03:24 +0000

By the Life Long Wobbly - January 18, 2016

The Chicago Teachers Step Up – What does it mean?

The decision of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to participate in the Black Friday protests against police brutality is an important step forward, advancing both the struggle against the Chicago police department, and allowing the CTU to flex its muscles before the end of its contract. Chicago Teachers voted overwhelmingly to support a strike in their recent strike authorization vote, and if they can win another strike as they did in 2012, it would be an incredibly important victory for the working class around the country. It would show that education workers can fight and win, especially if they have united with the broader working class around issues such as institutional racism.

The simmering rage against Chicago’s blatantly racist, terrorist, secret prison-operating police department provides an important backdrop. US anti-labor law illegitimately limits what workers can strike over; if the teachers go on strike, and demand the removal of police from school campuses, or defunding of the police force, that would make their strike “illegal” in the eyes of the state. Chicago teachers have an important choice. Even if the teachers go on strike and don’t say a word about the police, the CPD is intimately tied to Rahm Emanuel’s austerity regime, and a teachers’ strike could strengthen and build on the movement against police brutality and terror. However, if the teachers do explicitly include anti-police demands in their strike, and stick by them even when threatened with injunction, they could really inspire the rest of the working class in Chicago to mobilize and support them. A victory in that case would also show that workers can successfully take on the system of anti-labor laws in this country, particularly those which declare certain kinds of strikes “illegal”.

Could teachers and other education workers strike to remove police from schools? Nothing could stop them from putting this into their demands. If a teachers union prioritized “cops off campus”, and waged a strike on the level of Chicago in 2012 or Seattle earlier this year, this would be a massive step forward. This would be particularly powerful to the degree that it spread beyond the teachers to include other education workers. Of course, any industrial action for “cops off campus” would meet bitter resistance from the city administration, at the same time that the national media, the Democratic Party, and – most importantly – the national unions would stop at nothing to sabotage this action, and force or cajole the workers into moderating their demands.

This is why militant education workers would have to prepare for this struggle, beginning by consciously identifying with the victims of police brutality, against the police rather than with them. An initiative to strike for “cops off campus” might need years before education workers actually have the strength and organization to pull it off – but the situation in the US over the last several years has also been very fluid, and things could develop much quicker than we might expect.

Language workers got Tallents!

x344543 — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 02:11:48 +0000

By Angry Language - LibCom.Org, September 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Ultimately, we were forced to go down the legal route. That means that IWW members at LSSE only got the legal minimum, despite our belief that the callous mistreatment we suffered while at the school entitled us to further compensation. In any case, we got more than Craig had ever planned to give us.

We're proud to say that in our effort to make Craig pay up, the workers ran militant and well-organised campaign. We occupied the school. We forced Craig to resign as a governor of the Bancroft School and to shut down the website of another one of his business interests, Asparagus Consulting. We hassled him at his residents' association. We held numerous pickets and protests in Leicester Square and at the Drapers' Guild, where Craig is a member of some note – actions which did not go unnoticed by senior officers of the organisation.

To any other workers who may ever have the misfortune to work for Craig, we have a message for you: if he mistreats you in any way, you've got the support of the Angry Language Brigade and the IWW. It doesn't matter if you're a language school worker or not; if Craig's your boss, we got your back.

And let this be a message to any future would-be business partners: Craig Tallents is a toxic asset. Besides his consistently underhanded business practices, he's got two organisations who are ready and willing to picket and protest anywhere he sets up shop.

Jon Bigger, the IWW caseworker who helped the workers, said “this case was a good example of a boss trying to hide when the going got tough. Future workers and business partners of Craig Tallents will no doubt take note of his actions. Bosses should take note of ours.”

For those who've followed the dispute, one of the key issues was that Craig had illegally and intentionally misclassified a number of teachers as self-employed. This meant that when Craig shut down the school, he thought he could do so without paying those teachers thousands of pounds in holiday and notice pay.

The good news is that if you've been misclassified – a major problem in language schools – you have recourse. Raise it collectively with your workmates or contact HMRC who can contact your employer to make them sort out their records and pay you any back pay to which you may be entitled. HMRC can be contacted anonymously, but it's probably best if you have someone like a union rep call on your behalf.

Friedrichs v. CTA: the Supreme Court Case That Could Destroy Labor Unions as We Know Them

x344543 — Sun, 20 Sep 2015 20:18:33 +0000

By Andrew Stewart - CounterPunch, September 18, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This Presidential campaign has become even more of a media spectacle than the last two were, which in and of itself proves our electoral system is broken because the voters treat governance like professional wrestling. The Republican field is so close to a Vince McMahon Slam-O-Rama match that we do not even need to come up with silly stage names for these doofuses.

But what stuns me most about the Democratic field is that, even in the midst of our kinda-sorta dialogue about democratic socialism brought about by the Sanders dog-and-pony show, not a single candidate has yet to talk about the cornerstone of a socialist society, our barely-breathing labor unions. We have heard news stories about everyone’s favorite walrus, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, coming down from on high and reminding the masses that he, not they, get to choose whether the unions endorse Sanders or Clinton. But the elephant in the room which no one is talking about is the Friedrichs v. CTA Supreme Court case, which has seen the Petitioner Brief filed on September 4, 2015, followed by nineteen amicus curiae briefs on September 10 and. For those just tuning in, this is the case that will destroy labor unions as we know them in our country. This omission from our national dialogue is analogous to the three months before 9-11 when everyone was telling President Bush that something was going to happen but he was too busy farting around on his ranch to care.

Northeast Ohio Industrial Workers of the World resolution on behalf of the teachers of the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD)

IWW.org Editor — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:44:39 +0000

By the Northeast Ohio Industrial Workers of the World - March 13, 2012

On behalf of the Northeast Ohio Industrial Workers of the World, we salute the Cleveland Teachers Union and the students and families of Cleveland, Ohio in their stand against Mayor Frank Jackson’s school reform initiative simply referred to as the “Cleveland Plan.” This plan, if one can call it such, has no data or research showing how any of the “reforms” would increase student learning or make the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) any better. Scapegoating teachers is a failed tactic, especially in a district such as Cleveland where teachers have lowered their own pay by $25 million and pushed for innovative reforms in teacher evaluation and collaborative work environments. The problem in the CMSD is not the staff, it is poverty. It is not only economic poverty destroying so many communities, but also the craven poverty of spirit that seeks simple answers to difficult questions and uses Cleveland’s children as pawns yet again in another untested reform package.

As Workers Celebrate May Day, Union Officials Attempt to Steal Internal Leadership Election

x344543 — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:04:12 +0000

Grad Union Reformers Call on UAW 2865 to Count Every Vote in Union Leadership Election

--Cheryl Deutsch, UC Irvine, Candidate for President --Charlie Eaton, UC Berkeley, Candidate for Financial Secretary, 510-220-1520

The UAW 2865 internal union Elections Committee has been conducting a vote count since Friday, April 29th for a contentious election for the Local's top elected leadership. As the count proceeded, it appeared possible that a slate of reformers, Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (www.awdu.org) would win the election. Then, at 8 pm Saturday, April 30, the incumbent- controlled Election Committee abruptly decided to terminate the vote count, leaving 1500 ballots uncounted -- nearly half the ballots cast.

In a blatant effort to hold on to the power and privileges of their high paying positions, paid union official Daraka Larimore-Hall and his incumbent slate have tried to spin this egregious violation of UAW election procedures. Many of the incumbent candidates are not graduate students, including three of the incumbent candidates for top officer positions. With the vote count, together these candidates stand to lose the hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and benefits they give themselves annually with graduate students’ dues dollars.

Cheryl Deutsch, AWDU candidate for President, said, “We won't know if AWDU won the election until all the votes are counted, but it's hard to understand why else the current union administration would abandon the vote count without having counted nearly half the ballots cast in the election.”

All but three of the Elections Committee members abandoned all of the election materials in the union's LA conference room, including boxes of more than 1500 uncounted ballots from UCLA and Berkeley union members.

A group of more than 20 UAW 2865 member reformers and three Elections Committee members still present left all materials in the conference room exactly as they were when the Elections Committee abandoned the vote count. The group then locked the conference room to preserve the integrity of the ballots, after photographing and videotaping the room and its contents in detail. UAW 2865 members remain at the LA office to monitor the ballots and ensure they are not tampered with until they can be counted.

AWDU has demanded that our UAW 2865 Elections Committee count every vote and have called on Mr. Larimore Hall and all candidates on his slate to join us in our demand.

IWW Work People’s College Event a Success - A Day of Education and Discussion

x344543 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:02:07 +0000

By FW John O’Reilly

On Saturday April 16, IWW members and friends enjoyed a day of free educational talks in the new union office in South Minneapolis. The event was organized by the Work People’s College, a committee of the IWW branch, and promoted ideas and conversations about different important themes that working people are facing today. Over 60 people attended the talks through the course of the day, and many members took away important lessons and invaluable conversations.

Class topics included an update and discussion about the current struggles faced by pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and Northern Africa, a panel featuring organizers working in the low-wage sector and a talk about the importance of the strike as a tactic for workers. Members of the Madison IWW branch came to help lead reflections about the movement for a general strike in Wisconsin and where the situation stands today. Throughout the day, Wobblies talked and showed a characteristic dedication to educating one another and ourselves.

Bay Area IWW Joins in March 4th Events in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco

x344543 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:32:24 +0000

By X344543. Photo by Alan Benjamin & The Organizer; used by permission.

Thursday March 4th was an exciting and invigorating day of action as students and education workers from around the State of California walked out of schools and universities in protest of impending cuts to education budgets statewide. Students and teachers protested against the cutbacks, attacks on unions, and even against the systematic privatization of public education.

On March 4th the IWW set up a literature table at Frank Ogawa Plaza just outside of city Hall in downtown Oakland, which was the gathering point for students and teachers in western Alameda County. Beginning at Noon, thousands of teachers and students began pouring into the plaza as organizers, activists, students, and teachers spoke out against the impending cuts. IWW members marched in several different contingents (and many active members of the Bay Area GMB are teachers).

Bay Area IWW buyback recyclers spoke out publicly against the cutbacks in solidartity with the students and teachers. The largest contingent to arrive in Ogawal plaza (and one of the last) was the 1,000-plus strong UC Berkeley contingent who marched over six miles from the Berkeley campus to downtown Oakland.

Some of the IWW members later took BART (public transit) across the bay to San Francisco to join in a rally at Civic Center Plaza organized by teachers and students in the city.

Meanwhile, some of the more militant activists made a bold stand by taking over a very busy Interstate 880 and 980 freeway interchange near Oakland's Jack London Square. It's not certain whether or not any of these activists were IWW members, several of the demonstrators were arrested (and one unlucky activist was injured by a fall from the above-ground freeway overpass to the street level below)."

“Springtime for America (Again)” - Bay Area IWW Participates in the March 4th Demonstrations

x356641 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:06:15 +0000

By John Reimann

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election for president in 1984, he declared that it was “springtime for America”. He should have said it was “springtime for Corporate America.” Under his administration and those that followed, Corporate America and the world wide capitalist class increased its domination of the world, seemingly without an equivalent resistance from the working class, especially from the US working class. While this has started to change in recent years, the movement in the US has been lagging far behind.

Now that is starting to change.

Youth Movement

In California, a college and university student movement started over the last six months. The attacks on college and university students that have generated this movement are part of wider attacks on public education as well as on all public services and on the working class in general. Almost immediately, the university students grasped the slogan “defend free public education” – making the link between their own situation and that of public education in general. At a California state-wide student conference last October, it was agreed to organize a state-wide strike for March 4.

Here in the working class town of Oakland, California, an “Outreach Committee” was set up build the movement in this area. One key issue was decided immediately: Our intent was to actually disrupt the workings of the state, and we were going to try to do that through setting up a protest starting at noon, rather than at the end of the work day. We also wanted this to be an event of, by and for the youth of Oakland.

This contrasted to San Francisco, where the union officialdom conspired with the Board of Education to block a day-time rally. There, they organized a rally for 5:00 p.m. to ensure that workers didn’t walk off work and students didn’t walk out of school. Throughout the region, those forces who sought to tame the movement pushed for attendance at this San Francisco rally rather than the one in Oakland.

A key focus in Oakland was to organize in the high schools. However, the size of our effort was limited by the extreme constraints on our actual forces and resources. As a result, in most schools we were unable to establish regular working groups to organize a strike. Yet on March 4, by 7:30 in the morning, there were some 30 or 40 students standing outside the high school near my home, with home-made picket signs in hand, shouting and cheering. With just the minimal outside help, these students had organized themselves!