San Francisco Bay Area GMB

This is the news page for our San Francisco Bay Area General Membership Branch. To get an overview about our contact info, news and events, please visit our home page.

San Francisco ESL SFIE Teachers To Strike-Join the Picket Line/Solidarity Needed!

Posted Sun, 03/16/2008 - 11:38pm by x344543

Bay Area IWW members are involved in the following struggle:

On Monday, March 17, at 8:30 a.m. a strike will begin at San Francisco Institute of English (3301 Balboa, corner of 34th Avenue in SF's Outer Richmond District) and will continue until the following demands are met:

  • Return of fully-paid health care that was removed in 2004 with the promise of its return when financial conditions improve, which they have -- in addition, this past week SFIE sold another school property that had been on the market for $1,395,000.
  • An across-the-board 30% increase in wages, with automatic future cost-of-living-adjustments because there have been none for over 12 years.

Please join our picket line in front of the school building, as well as contribute to our strike fund (e-mail back for details).

Berkeley IWW Recycling Workers Unite in Solidarity to Win Better Contracts

Posted Wed, 02/06/2008 - 2:56pm by x344543

By M.K. and other members of the Bay Area Utility Service Workers iu670 industrial organizing committee.

The contract negotiations between the Bay Area IU 670 Recycling Workers Union and the two Berkeley Recycling Companies has been a challenging struggle, but workers have stepped up to fight for tremendous improvements. The Bay Area IWW represents drivers at The Ecology Center who do residential curbside pickup, and workers at The Community Conversation Center yard who sort and process recycling materials. Both workers have been waging shopfloor struggles to resolve grievances and improve their working conditions. With both contracts coming up for negotiations, workers stepped up the fight.

The drivers met several times both at work and outside of work to draft an ambitious list of roughly 15 demands including an across the board wage hike, increase in pension payments by the company, and a change to the current accident penalties. The existing agreement resulted in termination of any driver who was involved in three accidents incurring more than $1400 worth of damage. With the narrow winding streets of Berkeley and the increasing costs of small accidents like broken rear-view mirrors, we have seen several workers purposefully dropping down to a loader after two incidents. This has resulted in wage decreases of up to $10 per hour!

Oak Grove / Free Speech Fight at UC Berkeley

Posted Fri, 12/28/2007 - 9:36pm by x344543
The following is posted in solidarity; at least one member of the Bay Area IWW has been targetted by this dragnet.   
 
Don't believe everything you read, free speech is once again an issue in Berkeley.

Though it might not have started as such, the struggle to save the Oak grove at Memorial Stadium has become a fight for free speech, tapping into our activist legacy: the Free Speech Movement.

The Oaks Protest became a fight for free speech when the fence was built around a peaceful protest and those participating were given the options of either coming down, and being arrested, or starving.

Fired Metro Lighting workers respond to anti-IWW screed published in Berkeley Daily Planet

Posted Mon, 11/19/2007 - 1:14pm by x344543

By Gabe Wilson and Matt K., Bay Area IWW

This commentary is a response to Christine Staples' "Truth to Power: what Truth? What Power?" of November 16th, 2007, in which the author attempts to portray the striking workers at Metro Lighting and their union as thugs attempting to "take over Metro Lighting, or to drive them out of business trying." These accusations are too ridiculous to deserve a response, and they only serve to divert attention from the real issues at the store. Her editorial makes no attempt to deal seriously with the concerns of Metro Lighting's employees, so we would like to make these real issues known.

Workers have the right, protected by law, to take concerted activity to improve their conditions at work and to bargain with their employer over these conditions. The workers at Metro Lighting were brave enough to assert this right, and have faced unwillingness to negotiate and illegal retaliation from the owners. What led up to this?

IWW Recyclers in Berkeley rally for Strong Contracts

Posted Wed, 11/14/2007 - 3:42pm by x345292

Recyclers held a stop work rally to press contract demands on Thursday, November 8th, at recycling facilities in Berkeley.  Thirty-five or so workers from two Berkeley recycling operations are in the midst of renegotiating contracts. At “curbside”, recycling trucks go out every week day morning to pick up residential recycling.  Across the way at “the Buyback,” residential recycling from the trucks plus drop-off recycling is sorted by twenty workers.  All workers are members of the IWW.  Both union contracts expire on December 31st, 2007.   During the rally workers from both shops stepped up and spoke about the need for unity, participation and solidarity in order to win their demands.  Demands are not the same at both shops.  However, workers at both shops are calling for a five dollar an hour wage increase across the board.  This is a serious demand.