"By building organizations based on solidarity, rather than on bureaucratic chain-of-command, we build organizations that by their very existence help to bring a new kind of society into being." --Staughton Lynd, Solidarity Unionism

For the first time in recent memory wobblies from all over will be meeting with the primary objective of discussing organizing. The Organizing Summit is what many wobs have been wanting for years. It is a chance to focus on organizing in the union and what it means to say, "Every member is an organizer."

The weekend will be hosted by the Austin GMB and was proposed at General Assembly 2005 in the hopes of supporting the work of the Organizing Department Formation Committee (ODFC). The assembly endorsed the Summit and the ODFC has also endorsed the meeting.

By New York city MTA Train Operator Harry Harrington - Industrial Worker, February 2006

The drama of the New York City transit strike began three years ago during the last contract struggle. The president of the subway and bus workers union local 100 of the Transport Workers Union went down to the deadline with threats of a strike but no preparation until, the day after the contract deadline, he accepted what members considered a terrible deal. It called for no raises in the first year of the contract, with givebacks in health benefits, discipline and job security – the future of hundreds of bus drivers and support personnel – by accepting little input in the MTA’s bus consolidation plans.

By Richard Myers - Industrial Worker, February 2006

One miner is injured in an explosion and will soon die. Twelve miners walk through the mine without necessary information or direction, their lives also in mortal danger.

The communication system has failed and ventilation controls were damaged during an explosion, allowing the buildup of dangerous gases. The emergency response is deficient, it fails to protect and evacuate miners at risk.

But this was not the Sago Mine in West Virginia. This was Brookwood, in Alabama, September of 2001. There had been a methane explosion, injuring four miners. Three were carried to safety. A second, larger explosion took the lives of the miner immobilized in the first blast, and twelve would-be rescuers. It was one disaster in an endless thread of disasters, a continuing calamity across the ages.

Industrial Worker - February 2006

Deep in the gritty, industrial district of North Brooklyn/Queens, 15 workers of EZ Supply started the new year right by marching to their workplace and demanding that their highly abusive boss sign a petition recognizing the IWW as their union.

Little over a month earlier they had come to the workers’ night at Make The Road by Walking, and told of working long hours without being paid overtime, which ultimately amounted to being paid less than minimum wage. Sometimes the trucks would finally be loaded to the top at 3 p.m., and the workers would be told that all 25 stops in Manhattan had to be made. And they did something rarely heard of: they collectively forced their boss to rehire a fired worker, who had been fired because he hadn’t made all the stops that day.

By Tomer Malchi - Industrial Worker, February 2006

On Friday Nov. 18, Starbucks workers at Union Square publicly declared their membership in the Starbucks Workers Union.  Throughout the weekend workers showed their strength by refusing to take off union pins in the face of management attempting to enforce a no-pin policy. Our key demands were for guaranteed hours, a group meeting with management, and an end to anti-union discrimination. 

District manager Kim Vetrano informed us three days after we went public that we could not wear our pins; although pins have been worn in the past, the policy was suddenly being enforced. Vetrano also insisted there would be no group meeting. We could have one-on-one meetings with managers, but not as a group. 

Industrial Worker - February 2006 

The Madison (Wisconsin) General Membership Branch has launched a campaign to organize the 400 or so businesses in the downtown area. The campaign began last Fall by canvassing the district, gathering contacts in dozens of shops, and is now well on the way to mapping the entire district.

The IWW Downtown Workers Union has opened an office at State and Gilman streets, produced a brochure on Workers’ Rights in Madison, and is working to build a strong union presence among these low-paid, hard-working, unorganized workers. They are working to establish new industrial union branches in IUs 640 (restaurant and building service) and 660 (general distribution), and to build an ethos of solidarity unionism that will give these workers the tools to win some of the good things of life.

By Tabitha Chase - Industrial Worker, February 2006

When I awoke on March 17, 2005, I checked my phone and found that I had five calls from three different phone numbers that I did not recognize. All of them were from special agent Dante Jackson of the FBI stating that I “had to call him back.” I immediately called my friend and attorney Ken Driggs, gave him the name of the agent and numbers, and asked him to find out what these calls were about. He called back later that day saying that they “were demanding a compulsory interview, and that should I refuse to schedule one or fail to show up, they would come and pick me up.” We scheduled the appointment for the following day.

By Jason Justice, 1996

We have reposted this text in January 2006, ten years after the fact, because another Oakland Teacher's strike seems inevitable. Already, the Oakland Unified School District is planning to use the same divide and conquer tactics they used in 1996. Knowing the history of the earlier strike might help teachers avoid another costly defeat. Read on. . .

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The San Francisco Bay Area is known for its diversity and political activity. Throughout Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding communities there has been a great deal of organization and activity both in recent years as well as years forgotten. The Black Panthers emerged in Oakland, People's Park was formed in Berkeley, and San Francisco is home to many organizations and years of political activism. While Bay Area political and labor activism may have been, or may be, relatively high, it is not necessarily the result of interested parties. It is often, instead, the self-defensive result of institutional abuse; workers and community members, in other words, have been, and are, forced to engage in political activism in defense of undesirable power relations and coercion. In late 1995 and early 1996 school teachers in the Oakland community were also forced into the realm of Bay Area labor activism due to unfair working and educational conditions.

In February 1996 political and labor activity in Oakland reached an unfortunately dramatic level of resistance. The strike that grew out of the Oakland school district was not desired. Teachers, like other oppressed workers, however, had no other option and so the strike was born. During the Oakland teachers' strike of 1996 many things happened. There was disapproval, there were fabrications and there were scabs. But there was also a tremendous sense of solidarity. Levels of support were high and strikes well supported. While the strike was never wanted, it was, perhaps surprisingly, the concerned reflection of both workers and the community, and thus, favorable to some degree.
 
Many other spectators were interested in the Oakland teachers' strike as well. It was read about by parents and teachers, community and authority. But the goals, the process and the outcome of the strike left many confused. Press coverage of the strike included many points of view. Within these points of view, however, statistics, ideas and outcomes were both manipulated and distorted due to various sources of misinformation. The coverage of the outcome of the strike left its audience especially unclear as to what it was that actually happened. The results, as explained in post newspaper articles, were examined only briefly, and, as with the coverage of the strike itself, the outcome has been misrepresented as well.

Attempting to understand the strike, in its conception, birth, process and outcome can only truly be understood when the totality of the activity is taken collectively into consideration. Since the time of the strike's victory, there has yet to be a comprehensive overview of the strike and its manifestations. Since, in my opinion, understanding the totality of the strike is central to judging and learning from it, I decided it was necessary that the strike be documented from its conception to its outcomes and manifested for public understanding.

While the Oakland teachers' strike accomplished no extraordinary victories or marked any seriously devastating outcomes, it is worth studying. There are valuable lessons to be learned in all strikes, in all labor victories, and in all labor defeats, and the Oakland teachers' strike is no exception. Whatever important lessons can be learned from this strike, I hope can now be studied more easily with the presented overview of the history and outcome of the Oakland teachers' strike compiled within the pages that follow.