This week will mean a return to campus for thousands of University of New Mexico students beginning their spring semester. Meanwhile, two former UNM employees will come back to UNM not to resume the jobs they loved, but to protest their recent terminations. They will gather with community allies, coworkers, and members of the IWW at the new George Pearl Hall located on the corner of Cornell and Central. There they will speak out about the lack of respect that UNM management has for university employees and what happens when workers speak up about health and safety issues.

Mike Swick had worked for UNM for 19 years when he was forced into early retirement. Mike is a former library facilities coordinator as well as a cofounder of the United Staff UNM union.

Radical bookstore opening in Out ch'Yonda at 929 4th St SW. Albuquerque, New Mexico Libre-ría “La Semilla” --- books, zines, posters, music, maté, art, shirts, coffee, films, music and more . Our focus is on: people of color, radical childrens & young adult books, queer theory, feminism, resistance movements, gay and lesbian, new mexican resistance movements, appropriate technology, political prisoners, magonismo, spanish language radical literature, workers' stories, Xicano movement, working class history, african american history, local poets, anarchism, local writers and artists, radical thought and history, zapatismo, indigenous history and struggles, socialism, ecological struggles, zines, punk rock, hip hop, anti war, and anti imperialist materials.

The bookstore will also provide a meeting and office space for the IWW, which is providing a mountain of books to the collective to start up.

Industrial Worker - March 2006

Albuquerque Wobblies are assisting a member fired by the University of New Mexico despite ten years of dedicated, accident-free work for insisting on a safe workplace.

Feydoun “Fred” Mahinfarahmand’s job as woodshop supervisor was eliminated Dec. 2 by the School of Architecture and Planning, citing the unsafe conditions he had been protesting. The woodshop is now closed.

Fred was hired as woodshop supervisor in early 1996, helping students and teachers with their projects and teaching them how to use the shop safely. In 1998, UNM’s safety inspectors found that the shop’s dust collection system was far below OSHA standards. Dust inhalation is a major occupational hazard for woodworkers. The report estimated that the problem could be fixed for $8,000. The school promised to fix the dust collector in 1999, but nothing happened.