The ATU 1395 are drivers working for little above minimum wage. Maybe you've seen them. They drive the "Community Transportation" vehicles that take the elderly and disabled where they need to go around town. Since unionizing in 1998, the Community Transportation drivers have made many gains, going from $6 hour top pay w/ no benefits to $8 hourly wage with some paid vacation and holiday time and health insurance. Now their boss, Pensacola Bay, which is owned by Marjorie Wilcox of Mobile, is trying to take away their health insurance and as rejected further negotiation on the possibility of future pay increases. It was with great difficulty that the senior members of ATU 1395 have voted to go on strike and take their grievences to the streets. The PNJ's Monday article about the strike said that ATU 1395 President Michael Lowery has stated the dispute is about wages, increased health insurance costs, and a harsher point system on their driving record. The formal complaints include: Failure to bargain in good faith, coercion and intimidation of employees in the union and unilateral policy changes without negotiations.

How can we support them?

Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.  This article is somewhat dated, but still relevant.

By Tom Wetzel

Despite heavy police presence at major bus transfer points, at least a couple thousand passengers rode the buses for free in San Francisco on Thursday, September 1st — the opening day of a fare strike in North America's most bus-intensive city. In the days leading up to September 1st, more than 50 people were actively organizing for the fare strike, with new groups endorsing the effort in the last week. More than 20,000 leaflets had been distributed and 10,000 stickers were attached to bus shelters and poles throughout the city — in Spanish and Chinese as well as English.

Muni — San Francisco's city-owned bus and streetcar network — raised its adult cash fare to $1.50 as of September 1st. This is the second hike in two years, representing an increase of 50 percent since 2003. Although organized pressure from community groups forced Muni management to back down on a proposal to raise the monthly pass, many low-income people have a hard time getting together the cash to buy the monthly pass. The weekly pass was a more financially accessible discount option for them. Muni never adequately advertised the weekly pass and has now raised it from $12 to $15.

November 18th has been declared a day of protest against the anti-union policy of Connex in general and against the sacking of Per Johansson in particular. We are appealing for your solidarity.

On September 27th, his employer, Connex Sweden, fired Per Johansson, chairman of the metro drivers' union of Stockholm. The reason for this was Johansson's alleged disloyalty to the company and his alleged rudeness towards his "fellow employees" (probably referring to his bosses). Connex maintains that the sacking is in no way related to Johansson's role as union chairman. The members of his union and other unions think otherwise.

Under Johansson's chairmanship the union has gained considerable ground in questions concerning wages and working hours. The immediate cause for his dismissal, however, is probably his focus on safety and working environment. Together with the elected safety controllers the union has put its finger on several sore spots. The safety controllers have used their power to stop the traffic on three different occasions after severe incidents. Insufficient measures having been taken to remedy the ills, Johansson has gone public. In all likelihood this constitutes his "disloyalty".

By Kim Scipes - from www.znet.org 

Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.

Whoopee! The Change to Win Coalition has established itself in the labor movement! Happy Days are here again! Andy Stern's going to lead us to the promised land!

And the overwhelming response by American workers: yawn.

At the time when American workers-indeed, US society as a whole-so much need a new labor center, to fight for economic and social justice, to challenge the policies of the Bush Administration, to challenge the worsening conditions for working people across the entire social order, and to challenge the US Empire overall, we get another AFL-CIO. Just under another name.  Please excuse me while I am underwhelmed.

Steve Early, a leader of the Communications Workers of America (AFL-CIO), writing in the October issue of Labor Notes, summed up the new developments nicely:

By Chris Arsenault, Halifax - Industrial Worker, November 2005

It's been more than eleven years since the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico said 'ya basta' or 'enough' to neo-liberalism and initiated a struggle for self-determination.

Today, the Zapatistas are creating a variety of participatory economic institutions to meet community needs: women's artisan co-ops, communal corn farming organizations, fair-trade coffee cooperatives and a non-sweatshop boot cooperative.

On a sunny day last year, myself and a delegation of foreign solidarity activists tramped the muddy hills around Oventic Caracole, in the Los Altos region, to visit the 1st of January boot co-op. Rafael Hedez, a leading activist with the co-op, and several other compañeros welcomed us with Cokes and bowls of snow-tire tough beef soup stewed on an open fire.

Inside the workshop, basically a barn with corrugated iron roof, one of the higher-end buildings in a region of thatched farm cuts, a dozen or so men busily cut leather, stick patterns and heat branding irons, large blue flames erupt as glue is melted to stick on the soles.

By Jon Bekken - Industrial Worker, November 2005

Every November we remember the rebel workers murdered by the employing class; a long list which grows longer every year. Fred Thompson used to speak of an IWW soapboxer whose rap went something like this: 'Workers are being fired for joining the IWW. Workers are being killed... Join the IWW.' It demonstrated, Fred used to say, a fine sense of solidarity but was not necessarily the best way to sign up new members.

The IWW has contributed more than its fair share of labor's martyr, because we have always been in the forefront of the struggle for workers' rights. By some accident of the calendar, many of our fellow workers have fallen in November, from the Haymarket Martyrs murdered Nov. 11, 1887, to the Nov. 4, 1936, death of FW Dalton Gentry, shot on an IWW picket line in Pierce, Idaho.

Some, like Joe Hill (killed Nov. 19, 1915) are famous; others, like R.J. Horton, largely forgotten. Fellow Worker Horton was shot down by a Salt Lake City cop Oct. 30, 1915, while giving a speech protesting the impending execution of Joe Hill.

By Jon Bekken - Industrial Worker, October 2005

Hundreds of thousands of workers face untold misery after they were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and the flooding that wrecked much of New Orleans in its aftermath. It may be months before many of those displaced from coastal Louisiana and Mississippi are allowed to return to what remains of their homes. However, things are looking much more promising for business. Owners of office space throughout the Gulf Coast region are doing record business; hotels are charging top dollar for shabby units; oil companies are enjoying windfall profits as the wonders of capitalism transform their damaged (and fully insured) refineries and drilling platforms into a price bonanza for energy suppliers.

Stock prices for major contractors Halliburton and Baker Hughes - which also have been making out like bandits from the carnage of the Iraq war - skyrocketed as they joined in the scramble to profit off this tragedy. A Sept. 6 story in the New York Times celebrated the business opportunities, even as it cautioned that some "are wary about seeming too gleeful in light of New Orleans' misery."

By Jon Bekken - Industrial Worker, October 2005

Northwest mechanics and cleaning crews remain solidly united as their strike against massive concessions that would cost most workers their jobs enters its second month. Unable to entice strikers to cross the picket lines, Northwest began hiring permanent replacements Sept. 13, and has contracted out nearly all of its cleaning work.

Delta and Northwest airlines filed for bankruptcy Sept. 14, after unions balked at the carriers' demands for another round of deep pay cuts, lay-offs and other concessions. While Northwest has said it will refuse to deal with the mechanics during the bankruptcy proceedings, this stance is illegal.

In the most recent round of contract talks, Northwest said it was willing to keep only 1,080 mechanics' jobs; most mechanics and all aircraft cleaner and custodian positions represented by the union would be outsourced, eliminating 3,181 positions that existed before the strike. Northwest had originally demanded "only" 2,000 lay-offs, so it is clearly feeling emboldened by the way other union workers have been waltzing across the mechanics' picket lines.