Fellow Workers,

I am a Wobbly in IU 650 who was trying to organize my workplace, here in San Diego.  I was working at a  group home for children with Severe Emotional Disorders run by a nonprofit called New Alternatives Incorporated. I started talking  to my coworkers on my shift about taking collective action when I observed  it to be an  environment of intimidation and favoritism. 

A former Coworker told me it was standard procedure to harass employees into quiting  at New Alternatives Inc. because they didn't want to  pay unemployment.  I know when a friend of mine quit without a two week notice the management called her up two weeks later yelling at her saying she would not get a good reference from them.”

I also heard coworkers from another program stating when they wrote a letter about the problems with a Shift Supervisor to the Program Manager, the Program Manager gave that letter to the Shift Supervisor, who met with the signatories individually and scolded them. This same shift supervisor once said that the employees of her shift should not expect a break during their eight hour shift. 

I had also  talked to an employee who had worked a double shifts which amounted to double-time hours, in California double time is anything in the excess of twelve hours in a shift,  and distribute them throughout the week so he would not be paid for double-time.  These are just some of the incidents as I had been the target of harassment as well. 

In response to several incidents I began drafting petitions and distributing amongst my shift. The first petition letter, which was sent to our  Program Manger and courtesy copied to the Executive Director, dealt with a letter of expectation that we as shift singled us out. Three of us signed this letter. The result of the meeting is we were able to meet the Assistant Executive Director who heard our grievances but was sort of standoffish about the whole incident.  The effect was we stood by our decision not to sign and the whole incident dropped off the map.

So I managed to get into this.

Dressed in white with nice shoes, a walmart unofficial souvenier T shirt and my IWW button Jennifer and I approached the Convention center (Not the Pepsi center where the convention is actually taking place.  Walked past a bunch of indiffent looking riot cops and tried to go to the "Union Event". I was told that I would have to get someone from inside come out a get
me, a not very likely proposistion.

So I went to the other side, smiled at the people holding pictures of the mangled fetus and asked some people at a table about attending the "faith based event"  I was asked for a ticket and said I had none but really wanted to go, so they passed me through and told me to talk to some people about late registration.

Please circulate widely.

On the 21st August Chris Lockwood, union organiser and member of the Industrial Workers of the World was fired from his bar job at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield (UK). This has been part of a long campaign by management of picking off and isolating workers who have voiced objections to recent changes that have worsened the conditions of all who work there.

The Showroom cinema is a registered charity and claims to be an "investor in people", yet has consistently attacked workers pay and conditions with the sole aim of greater profits. We believe that every worker (no matter what the industry) is entitled to respect and should be organised to defend themselves in the work place. Chris’ firing represents a direct and illegal attack against union organising.

Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW.  The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.

By Dave - originally posted to anarkismo.net, January 27, 2008

(Dave interviewed Ottawa anarchist Andrew Nellis for Linchpin. Andrew is an organizer with the Ottawa Panhandlers Union.)

Q. What is the Ottawa Panhandlers Union and how was it started?

A. The Ottawa Panhandlers Union is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It's a real union. What we do is run by the panhandlers themselves. The IWW has one paid member for the entire union. It's entirely member run. The idea is to empower people on the street to fight for themselves.

Ideally despite coming in as an outside organizer I'll be able to step out of the picture once the organization is up and running and there's a structure in place to ensure that the organization continues. I was on the street myself. I'm not on the street now. So I do know something about the milieu in which I'm working.

New York, NY- Less than three months after the National Labor Relations Board hit Starbucks with a 30-count legal complaint, the federal agency has once again accused the coffee giant of breaking the law in a continuing effort to undermine the IWW Starbucks Workers Union [StarbucksUnion.org]. Based on an independent investigation into the company’s conduct, the Board has alleged that Starbucks fired outspoken union barista, Isis Saenz, for protected organizing activity.

“It’s beyond dispute now that Starbucks is waging one of the most relentless anti-union operations in the United States today,” said Stuart Lichten, the IWW’s attorney on the case. “If Wal-Mart has a soul mate in the union-busting arena, it’s Starbucks.”

More than 150 people have signed a petition pledging to boycott WHSmith over plans to relocate Leicester's flagship post office.

Their signatures were collected in a few hours on Saturday during a protest outside the post office in Bishop Street.

The protest was organised by the Industrial Workers of the World union (IWW), which is campaigning against the branch's relocation to the basement of WHSmith, in Gallowtree Gate.

Stuart Price, from IWW, said the union felt a boycott would be the most effective way of letting bosses at Royal Mail and WHSmith know how strongly people opposed the move.

He said response to the petition had been "very positive".

Leicester's main post office is one of 76 branches nationwide that are to be relocated to WHSmith stores.

The Gallowtree Gate branch has started recruiting staff for the post office, and building work is under way.

Sandra Cutland, 40, from Braunstone, said: "They should keep it where it is."

John McKiernan, 44, of Knighton, Leicester, signed the pledge along with his mother, Iris.

He said: "Hopefully, with people signing this pledge and sticking by it, WHSmith will have to listen to what people are saying."

A spokeswoman for WHSmith said people had the chance to raise concerns about access during the consultation period on the relocation.

She said: "We would be extremely disappointed if they felt boycotting WHSmith would be the best way of saving the post office and keeping it where it is."

Customers wanting to comment on the proposed changes should write to: Philippa Wright, National Consultation Manager, Post Office Limited, c/o National Consultation Team, PO Box 2060, Watford WD18 8ZW.

The closing date for comments is June 20.

"Why I'm a wobbly" - Three members of the Industrial Workers of the World, from different political and working backgrounds, explain why they joined the IWW, and how they see their union.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Britain is growing. Freedom talked to three of its members about why they joined the union, its relationship with the anarchist movement and the relevance of the organization today.

Why did you join IWW?

Barbara: I am in an unusual employment situation. I am employed by elected representatives (members of the Scottish Parliament) who are also my comrades in the party of which I'm a member and activist. However there was no obvious trade union to be a member of. The vast majority of us were employed at the same time, shortly after the last Scottish Parliament elections and were encouraged to join the National Union of Journalists by a comrade. However I was unhappy about this as my work does not involve any journalism, and to be a member of the NUJ you have to state what percentage of your work is journalism. When I asked the full time organiser who came to recruit us, he was patronising and sexist - using phrases about me like "just a secretary". I challenged him but he only made it worse with more inappropriate comments. There was no way I could join the NUJ. I looked around and decided that I would join the IWW. I liked the idea that it's a union for all workers, no matter what kind of work you do. I also like the idea of one big union. Quite a few of my colleagues also joined the IWW as dual carders and we now have a job branch in the parliament.

Industrial Workers of the World

Twin Cities General Membership Branch

TO:

Tommy Sheridan MSP

Rosemary Byrne MSP

George Reid MSP (Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament)

Scottish Parliament
Holyrood, Edinburgh
EH99 1SP, United Kingdom

CC: Barbara Scott

14 December 2006

The Twin Cities General Membership Branch (GMB) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) supports the IWW and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) at the Scottish Parliament in their industrial dispute with Tommy Sheridan MSP and Rosemary Byrne MSP. We call for:

• an immediate return of all misappropriated funds to the employees resources group, an apology from the two MSPs, and for the Scottish Parliament to accept its culpability in conspiring with Sheridan and Byrne to unilaterally abrogate workers' collective contracts, thus forcing them into redundancy.
  
• The workers in question, who are employed by the Scottish Parliament as Caseworkers, Researchers and Parliamentary Assistant's for the SSP group, gained a major improvement in their employment situation when the May 2005 contract pooling MSP employment funds was won. These are collective gains; precisely the kind that we value the most and must protect.

The workers have made it very clear, and the Twin Cities GMB reaffirms, that this is not a political dispute but an industrial one. It is untenable that politician-employers could unilaterally, with the connivance of the Scottish Parliament, discard these collective gains for the sake of a political dispute. Workers' rights are not subject to political machinations.