Community Collective Bargaining with the Home Team
What do the Wobs mean by Community Collective Bargaining with Major League Baseball?
On July 29 the Wisconsin 5 County Major League Baseball Commission, the group that organized the public funding of Miller Park in Milwaukee through a 5 county sales tax, will be meeting to renegotiate the Brewer's lease of Miller Park. The retail space inside of Miller Park features apparel made in sweatshops around the globe with the Brewer's logo - the copyrighted property of Major League Baseball Properties. The people paid for this space to provide the Brewers and Major League Baseball with yet another awesome revenue stream.
Brewer's fans - the residents of working class Milwaukee and the surrounding counties deserve the opportunity to make educated decisions about the apparel being sold in the stadium space. A coalition including the Milwaukee General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World will demand that a bulletin board be set up inside the largest retail venues at Miller Park explicitly for the purpose of educating consumers about the working conditions in which the apparel is produced.
The content to be posted on these proposed bulletin boards may be submitted by the any concerned resident of the 5 counties who sales taxes paid for Miller Park. The proposed standard for posting is the educational value to potential consumers MLB licensed products. Folks with suggestions about how to prepare for the meeting on the 29 are invited to contact Jenny at 414-562-2028 or Kenneth at 412-231-2085. We are desperate need of information about the 5 county board and how it functions. A bulletin board victory at Miller Park is contingent on our ability to demonstrate for the board the seriousness of human rights violations across the global apparel industry and of their obligation to provide adequate consumer information in publicly funded space.
Also, Fellow Worker Travis was arrested during the All-Star Game on trumped up charges of interfering with police conduct. The reality is that he singled out of the crowd for his mere association with sweatshop activists talking to baseball fans about sweatshops. His hearing is on July 19. We demand that the police drop the charges and that the Brewers dump the unconstitutional and selectively enforced expression policy. that covers the area surrounding Miller Park. What we need to support sweatshop workers in struggle is space to talk with baseball fans in the stadium spaces. Call the Brewers and tell them to drop the charges. (414) 902-4400. Join the General Defense Committee of the IWW by visiting The IWW Web Page. Let's prepare for our own defense. LET THE CATS OUT!
Folks interested in winning the space outside the stadiums in Chicago, Boston, Philly, San Francisco or anywhere else can contact the IWW branches in those areas via the IWW directory posted on the web-page or hit Reply to Sender with contact your contact information. No Sweatshops Bucco! here in Pittsburgh will see the Pirates at PNC Park again on July 19. We will be enjoying our constitutional rights while Jalapino Hanna trounces the other perogies (I know it is spelled wrong, I referring to the Polish pasta dishes that race through PNC Park during home games. You got to be a Pirate fan to get it) and the Buccos smash St Louis!
For the One Big Union, Kenneth X346812