Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 05/15/2007 - 3:54am
Text by Rob X355616 and Photo by Stephanie X360677
Early May and Leicestershire IWW was involved in a host of diverse activities, ranging from participation in the May Day demo, running a stall at a local Social Forum event, flyering a local blood donor surgery as part of the National Blood Service dispute, and engaging in IWW social activities.
As the official Leicester Trades Council march was to be held on the 5th May, Leicester Wobblies decided to celebrate the real May Day with a social event at a cheap and friendly local Indian vegetarian place. The new local branch is a great believer in the notion that, 'people who play together will fight together' so social events are seen as essential for not only building branch cohesion but also for bringing new members into the local Wobbly scene.
Saturday 5th May we mobilised 15 Leicestershire Wobblies and were joined by a couple of members from Cambridge and Milton Keynes for the Trades Council march to defend public services.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 05/09/2007 - 3:51am
Originally posted by Sheffield Food Not Bombs to uk.indymedia.org on May 8, 2007.
On Saturday 5th May Sheffield Food Not Bombs staged a picket outside the Broomhill branch of Starbucks in solidarity with the IWW’s “Justice from Bean to Cup” campaign:
"Justice from Bean to Cup!" - A Human Rights Campaign in Solidarity with Starbucks Baristas and Coffee Farmers
Despite its attempt to create a socially responsible image, Starbucks’ failure to meaningfully embrace Fair Trade coffee and transparent purchasing has left coffee farmers and their children teetering on the brink of starvation in the Global South.
In Starbucks cafes, baristas are paid a poverty wage and the company insures a lower percentage of employees than Wal-Mart. Starbucks baristas are organizing a union with the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) for a better life on the job in the face of a fierce and unlawful union busting effort by the world's largest coffee chain.
The stall itself ran unexpectedly smoothly. Free coffee, tea, jaffa cakes and crisps were offered as an alternative to the overpriced drinks and food sold by Starbucks. The manager, who not surprisingly failed to appreciate the irony of Food Not Bombs using the same “aggressive marketing” strategy Starbucks uses to force other local coffee shops out of business, demanded the picket leave immediately else the police would be called. However, when the police showed it became clear that they dislike Starbucks’ attitude to employees and humanity in general as much as Food Not Bombs do, allowing the picket to continue. On the whole it was great to see so many members of the public actively interested in the disgraceful role Starbucks plays in union busting and abusing third world developers.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 04/11/2007 - 12:55pm
The National Blood Service performs a vital role in collecting blood from donations from 100's of sites daily, testing the blood for Hepatitis, HIV, Malaria and Syphilis and filtering the blood and separating into components. They must then distribute it promptly to hospitals. There are centres that perform these functions in Oxford, Bristol, Southampton, Tooting, Colindale, Brentwood, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Cambridge, Sheffield and Leeds.
Staff have been in industrial dispute with the NBS board of directors and management for about a year, over unworkable reconfiguration plans which will see local processing and testing sites condensed into just three 'supercentres', in Bristol, Manchester and Colindale.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 03/14/2007 - 5:17pm
It’s our Spring Offensive!
In other words, Baristas United are currently doing an organising drive at coffee shops across the country, yours included.
What does this mean? It means you’ll have the opportunity to talk to others about your work situation and anything else that’s not quite right at work. It means the opportunity to organise with other baristas to make your life at work better. It means help, support and
solidarity, as and when you need it.
Read the entire bulletin - PDF File.
Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 03/08/2007 - 2:51pm
Fellow workers,
Glasgow University IWW Job Branch and the Save Crichton Campus campaign in Glasgow are calling another phone lobby on the success of last week’s event, which saw the University implement a telephone protocol for complaints about Crichton and lay on extra staff to deal with the volume of calls.
See: http://iwwscotland.wordpress.com/crichton-struggle/
The campaign is starting to score victories against the decision. The Scottish Executive, previously immovable in claiming Crichton’s closure had nothing to do with them (an article in a Dumfries paper alleges they knew about the decision 8 months ago and gave the University the OK) is now pressurising Sir Muir Russell, principal of the university to meet with them to discuss the issue. The campaign is building momentum on campus with flyposting and creative publicity stunts and resistance is planned, however time is very short as the University has accelerated its attempts to shut the facility down in light of the media exposure. Pressure however is starting to tell.
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