All Branches

On behalf of our union, the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World sends our support and solidarity to the occupation of Wall Street, those determined to hold accountable our oppressors.

This occupation on Wall Street calls into question the very foundation in which the capitalist system is based, and its relentless desire to place profit over and above all else.

When 1% of the ruling class holds the wealth created by the other 99%, it is clear that the watchwords found in our union's preamble, "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common", ring true more than ever.?The IWW does not follow a business union model. We believe that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common and we don't foster illusions to the contrary.

Throughout the world, from Egypt to Greece, from China to Madison, Wisconsin, working class people are starting to rise up. The IWW welcomes this. We see the occupation of Wall Street as another step - no matter how large or small - in this process.

Headlines:

• Pizza Hut Workers: Cheesed Off From Paris To Sheffield
• Verizon Workers Strike
• London IWW Cleaners Fight Back

Features:

• Review: "The Man Who Never Died"
• Interview: Capitalism & The Environment
• Report From The Gaza Freedom Flotilla II

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By X341189

Since the mid-1990s, the major U.S. railroads (“Class Is”) have been hiring new trainmen to staff the nation’s freight trains. Passenger carriers such as Amtrak together with various metropolitan commuter railroads in cities like New York, Boston, L.A. and Chicago are also regularly seeking employees. This offers an invaluable opportunity for young activists to hire out in an industrial setting and make some money, all the while:

• learning about the transportation industry;
• working under and understanding a union contract;
• becoming familiar with the great history of the class struggle on the railway;
• taking part in the rank-and-file movement of railroad workers; and
• joining with your fellow workers to build the One Big Union in a key sector of the economy.

The recession has eased and nearly all furloughed railroaders have been called back to work. The railroads are once again hiring in terminals all across the U.S. and Canada. Their websites are flush with job openings in all the crafts, especially in train & engine service. Since everything to do with personnel on the railroad is seniority driven, NOW is the time to hire out so you don’t get left behind and have to follow a crowd of others for your entire career.

For those who would hire out in “Transportation” the new hire usually begins work as a “brakeman” or “conductor trainee”. After a specified period of time and the requisite tests, the new hire is promoted to Conductor. Then at some point in the future, depending upon seniority and the “needs of the carrier”, the conductor will be selected to attend engine school. Following an extended (6 months- to-a-year) on-the-job training, s/he will be promoted to licensed locomotive engineer. (If “train and engine” is not your scene, the railroads are also hiring -- although not as regularly -- track maintainers, train dispatchers, signal maintainers, car inspectors, clerks, electricians, machinists, laborers and others in the shop crafts).

All “train and engine” (T&E) jobs are union jobs, paying between $30,000 and $100,000 per year with full benefits. Union membership is obligatory upon successful completion of a probationary period of usually 60-90 days upon “marking up”. The T&E employee has a choice of joining the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (descendent of the oldest craft union in the U.S.) or the United Transportation Union (UTU), an amalgamation of four old craft unions that merged in 1969 – the Switchmen (SUNA), Trainmen (BRT), Conductors (OCA) and Firemen (BLF). Dues usually range between $70 and $120 per month. Most Locals (UTU) and Divisions (BLET) hold regular monthly membership meetings.