Industrial Workers of the World

http://minimumsecurity.net/blog/2010/06/23/the-math-of-resistance/

June 23rd, 2010 On Monday, a small group went inside the BP command center in New Orleans to confront those responsible for the spill.

http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/blog/Gulf-Oil-Spill-Unified-Command-Center-Protest?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MobileBroadcastNews+(Mobile+Broadcast+News)

This protest was symbolic; a small number of people couldn’t really disrupt the activities of BP. Imagine, though, if they had a few hundred angry and determined people. Then they could have shut that place down.

Small numbers + confrontation = symbolic (with potential for effectiveness)

* * *

Hundreds or thousands of people will hold hands on beaches worldwide this weekend, protesting the catastrophe in the Gulf and demanding an end to offshore drilling.

http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/

Thoughts on the Successful Picketing of the Israeli Zin Line Ship, Oakland, California Sunday, June 20, 2010

History was made Today.

Met together to flame the spark

struck by the Gaza Flotilla.

800 of us.

Long day to me. Up ready at a.m. 4:30

Copwatch Security crew swept into office gearing up.

Last minute hustling for rides to docks.

Wobbly universal-labeled drum carried by Copwatch car.

Down empty streets, past committed comrades stringing out along the road hiking Bart to the dock at Berth 58.

Dropped off across tracks from closest gate a

nd walked across to growing clustered pickets.

Sorting out.

Fellow workers Bruce and Donna

flying red/black flag.

Picket sign.

First forty formed a line at first gate.

Took back copwatch wobbly drum.

Drum beat

march to main gate,

numbers growing.

Wobbly Banner strung across wire fence

fellow workers down from Reno.

Fellow Workers with Security,

Steve and John waving wobbly flag.

6 am line swelled to hundreds.

Proletarian Photo Story from Kapas Hera:

A New Working Class Dormitory Shanty-Town in Gurgaon, India GurgaonWorkersNews - June 2010

Kapas Hera is one of the biggest new 'working class dwelling clusters' in the Delhi industrial belt. Within the last ten years rent-based mass-accomodations for around 200,000 to 300,000 workers and families emerged out of dusty scrub-land around a minor peasant village. Kapas Hera is where over 100,000 garment export workers eat and sleep or conspire after 12 to 16-hours shifts in neighbouring Udyog Vihar Phase I to IV - one of Delhi's biggest 'planned' industrial areas.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/for-some-workers-the-struggle-will-never-end-20100615-yd9p.html ANDRA JACKSON June 16, 2010

GURINDJI member Peter Inverway grew up hearing his stockman father's tales of once having been paid in rations, never dreaming he might one day know the same indignity. That was until the federal government intervened in Northern Territory indigenous communities three years ago. Mr Inverway, a construction and building worker, helped build the railway between Alice Springs and Darwin in 2002.

Since the intervention, his earnings have gone from a peak of $1200 a week to about $4.80 an hour for him and other Gurindji. He works a 30-hour week, building an arts and crafts centre for Kalkaringi. Every fortnight, Centrelink pays $250 into his bank, his ''choice'' money and $150 is paid into a Basics Card [rations] with kindergarten-style drawings of what it can be spent on - clothes, food, health items and hygiene products. ''We've gone back to when my people were working for rations of tea, flour and a bit of tobacco,'' he said in Melbourne where he was meeting trade union leaders.

Global Day of Remembrance for Foxconn’s Victims 8/6/10

Yan Li, 27, is the latest victim of Foxconn, the manufacturer of iPads and other high-tech items that has experienced a recent rash of worker suicides. He collapsed and died from exhaustion on 27 May after having worked continuously for 34 hours. His wife said Yan had been on the night shift for a month and in that time had worked overtime every night. Yan, an engineer, had worked for Foxconn since April 2007.[1]

The tragedy marks the 11th death at the corporation since January this year. To pay respect to these young lives, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) designates 8 June 2010 as the Global Day of Remembrance for Foxconn’s Victims. Despite pressure from civil society and the media, Foxconn continues to deny that the suicides are related to management methods.

Friday 4th June 2010 Electrical Trades Union Bans Members from Working in Nuclear Industry

http://revitalisinglabour.blogspot.com/2010/06/electrical-trades-union-bans-members.html

The Queensland and Northern Territory Branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) announced on May 31 that its state council had placed a ban on its members’ working in uranium mines, nuclear power plants or any part of the nuclear fuel cycle. The ban reflects both the ETU’s concern regarding the threat to the health and safety to workers engaged in the industry and its view that nuclear power should not be a source of power generation.

In a statement issued on May 21 Peter Simpson, ETU state secretary, said “we are sending a clear message to the industry and the wider community that vested interests in the uranium and nuclear industries are trying to hoodwink us about this dangerous product and industry. Corporate interests, and their political supporters in the Labor and Coalition parties, are also trying to buy working families off with high wages, while denying the true short-term and long-term health risks of such jobs”.

New Zealand: JB Hi-Fi; always cheapest wages

On the 16th of April retail workers at JB Hi-Fi in Wellington, New Zealand, part of a nationwide electronics chain, walked out of their workplace and went on strike to protest their meagre wages. The workers have struck several times since and are now bracing themselves for a bitter struggle against bosses who want them to carry on working long hours for little money. The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement speaks to Shanna Olsen-Reeder, a JB Hi-Fi worker and Unite Union delegate, about her involvement in the industrial action.

Could you briefly explain the present working conditions at JB Hi-Fi?

Rotten apples

As many of you will be aware, the Apple iPad had it world-wide launch this weekend. What you may not know is that the factory which produces it, in China, has been the scene of a dozen worker suicides in recent months. We've been asked by unions and NGOs in Hong Kong and Taiwan to launch a big international campaign to put pressure on the factory owners -- and on Apple -- to probe why this is happening, and to allow workers there to have real, independent unions that can bargain collectively.

Please take a moment to send off your message now:

www.labourstart.org/foxconn

It's been dubbed the "suicide express" by Chinese media. Twelve workers, all between 18 and 24 years old, have committed suicide, at the production facilities of Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwan-owned enterprise based in Shenzhen, southern China.

IWW Education Workers campaigning in defence of public education

Education workers and fellow workers from West Midlands IWW supported the recent call by the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education (which initially met in UC Berkeley).

On March 4, education workers based in Universities across the West Midlands took part in leafleting across the University of Birmingham, raising awareness about the day of action and encouraging other education workers and students to support the initiative. This was followed up the following Saturday by another round of campaigning, heralding the importance of workers and students mobilizing in support of public education.

The IWW education workers targeted the national Education Show, which took place at Birmingham’s National Education Centre, and then moved to Birmingham’s main shopping street, New Street, to raise awareness about the problems facing public education in the region.