Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 01/10/2006 - 1:51am
December 22nd: Last Thursday at 7 in the morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents with guns busted into the San Francisco apartment of two Young Workers United (YWU) members. The couple was excitedly preparing for the birth of their first child. It appears to be the case that the womans former employers called the ICE on this young family. Due to legal considerations, YWU is not releasing the name the couple or the restaurant. Her employer had been paying far below the legal minimum wage, and also yelled at workers, threatened them with deportation, called them racial slurs and ultimately fired the young woman for speaking out and organizing against these abuses and being pregnant.
The young man was taken away and flown that night to a detention center in Eloy, Arizona. It is virtually impossible to get into the detention center and 90% of the detainees have no access to a lawyer. YWU is working tirelessly to coordinate with lawyers and Arizona immigrant rights group to get the all the resources he needs. A recent doctor's appointment indicates that the young woman will likely give birth this week. YWU has helped win a minimum wage charge through the City and has claims for pregnancy discrimination and retaliation. This young mother-to-be has no income since the ICE is detaining her partner. Young Workers United is asking for donations to be sent to help with her expenses.
Update: The father is still in custody in Eli, Nevada. He has a lawyer and support from Young Workers United and the local labor and immigrants' rights communities. An attempt to post bail at his hearing on January 3rd was ignored by the judge.
Submitted by x344543 on Sat, 12/31/2005 - 3:32pm
By Coley Ward - creativeloafing.com, December 28, 2005
Tabby Chase works nights as a dancer at the Clermont Lounge, so she was asleep the morning of Thurs., March 17, when she says FBI Special Agent Dante Jones called her.
Chase says she didn't know what the FBI wanted. When she awoke, it was late afternoon, and she had five messages from three numbers. She says each was from Jones, telling her the FBI needed to ask some questions.
Chase is tall and thin, with hair buzzed to about a quarter-inch, except for long blond bangs that routinely fall in her face. She describes herself as a flaky anarchist, somebody who has an inherent distrust of government and big business but who is "terrible at outreach" and "not involved in any organizing."
Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 12/08/2005 - 3:27pm
By MATT APUZZO - Associated Press Writer, December 7, 2005.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A professor and outspoken anarchist has agreed to leave Yale University this spring, ending an appeal over whether his termination was politically motivated.
David Graeber, one of the world's leading social anthropologists, said he will teach two classes next semester, then take a yearlong paid sabbatical after which he will not return.
"Normally, you get a sabbatical on the condition that you come back and teach the following year," Graeber said. "I'm getting the sabbatical on the condition that I don't come back and teach."
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 11/02/2005 - 6:01am
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.
Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 10/09/2005 - 5:30pm
By Harry Harrington, aka Sathari Singh Khalsa - Industrial Worker, September 2005.
In June of last year the New York City Transit Authority removed me from my job as a train operator for wearing a turban. I had worked there for 23 years with a turban, nearly all as a train operator. The bosses at the MTA were quickly compelled by adverse media coverage to return me to my regular job in passenger service. The initial attempt to put me out of sight failed. My case had reached millions through TV and newspaper accounts that made the MTA officials look like narrow-minded bigots.
Not to be frustrated in their efforts to control nearly all aspects of their employees' lives, the MTA bosses then told me that I had to "pick" a job in the yard during the next job selection process if I continued to wear my turban. As a member of the worldwide Sikh community, I could not remove my religiously mandated head covering and as a union activist I could not let them violate my rights. The media campaign continued and the pick came and I did not pick a yard job but a job I had been working for the last 12 years on the number four Lexington Avenue Express line. Their threat to fire me for picking my regular job proved empty.
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