Industrial Workers of the world iww.org.uk

It has been announced that the government plans to create an extra 35,000 apprenticeship places in the next year, as an effort to combat the recession that is well underway. Gordon Brown has pledged a whopping £140 million to create these places at colleges around the UK.

For days the young people of Greece have been in the streets, venting their anger.

Anger against the police who murdered a 15 year-old in cold blood.

Anger towards a political class (those of all parties) which is infested with corruption and nepotism.

Their anger against this political class that privatises universities, casualises the young workforce and chips away at the gains of the workers (social security and retirement reforms)

In next week there will be Court Trials in the Polish 'Working Courts' against members of the Workers' Initiative, a union with whom the IWW has a formal alliance.

It is important that people send protest letters and faxes from IWW to support three victimised WI members.

On the weekend of Martin Luther King Day (19th January), log truckers and container haulers from Eastern North Carolina and Virginia will be gathering to formally charter the United Truckers Union as part of the IWW. This event will be the culmination of a nearly year-long organizing drive that led to a work stoppage on the morning of December 8, 2008. That action, which saw small but lively pickets outside of Weyerhaeuser mills along coastal North Carolina, reduced the amount of logs entering the New Bern mill by approximately 35% and shut down several tree stands in the Plymouth area.

Spotting Bullying

Bullies tend to surround themselves with supporters and spies while cultivating allies in senior management. They create rivalries in the workplace, bringing out the worst in people as they try to be ‘in’ with the bully. Being bullied makes people feel vulnerable, isolated and frustrated, and may lead to stress related illnesses. It affects relationships with family and friends.

I have just joined the IWW and look forward to taking part in things. We have members in my area (north west Wales). We hope to get enough to start a branch eventually. We have just set up a website http://union-wales.org/iww.html

When the fat cat city ‘bankers’, stock broker, financial whiz kids and economists: the people who really run the country, the people who determine government policy on the economy and public spending (or lack of) and taxation, the people who cream off obscene personal fortunes for them selves and their rich buddies, when they get into a crisis as is inevitable, all of a sudden we have a bottomless pit of tax payers money available to bail them out.

The second edition of IWW Education Workers Industrial Union's occasional freesheet, workingclasroom, is now available online and in print. It contains news, views, letters, and details on how to get in touch with EWIU.

Download pages 1 and 4
Download pages 2 and 3

If you would like to request some copies to distribute at work, please email education@iww.org.uk

The main Health and Safety inspector attending the scene told Glasgow Sheriff Court that the lorry tail-lift that killed Dr Graham Meldrum at Allied Bakeries Glasgow depot in July 2005 was not operational. The lorry should not have been on the road, he stated. The Fatal Accident Inquiry into Dr Meldrum’s workplace death started its fifth week on 11th August, and heard damning evidence of corporate disregard for workers’ safety.

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. Management have refused our request to review his dismissal, so on the 12th of September members of the Industrial Workers of the World will be picketing the Showroom cinema to demand the immediate reinstatement of Chris Lockwood.

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