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Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 07/26/2005 - 11:53pm
Disclaimer - This is not an official campaign of the IWW, but Olympia IWW members have been supporting this struggle from the beginning, and they have requested we cover this struggle, and in the interests of solidarity, we cover it here.
In the past few days the owners of Pizza Time have agreed to meet with the Pizza Time workers to discuss reinstatement, and to negotiate a written agreement to protect basic worker's rights. The picket line has been suspended as a show of good faith and to show the owners that we can work together. We hope to begin negotiations this week, and we need help from everyone who supports our cause. We look forward to working with the new owners. More details will come soon.
One Day Only - Thursday, July 28th: Buy Pizza Time Pizza to Support the Workers!!!
We are asking community members to buy a Pizza Time Pizza Thursday, July 28th to show the owners that the community would support Pizza Time if they became socially responsible. Please call (360) 956-9020 to order a pizza on Thursday only.
**** Tell Pizza Time you are ordering a Pizza because you support the workers and want them rehired with protection for their rights in writing.****
If you don’t live in Olympia, call them and tell them you would order a pizza if you were in the area.
We need your support more than ever at this critical time as negotiations officially begin. This is a One Day Only event.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 07/20/2005 - 2:44am
In February of 2005, all nine Pizza Time workers in Olympia WA and theirmanager Alex Wentz went on strike to take a stand against racism and tostand up for their rights as workers. Shane Bloking, a previous managerat Pizza Time, bought into the business and immediately fired twocompetent employees. Shane has a history of uttering racist comments andit came to no surprise when Abara, the stores only African-Americanemployee, was the first to be fired Shanes second day. Shane started toreplace the workers with his incompetent brother and his friends.
Instead of watching our co-workers get fired for no good reasonone-by-one, we held a meeting at Alexs house that night. The remainingworkers didnt want to work at Pizza Time under these conditions. Wechose to take a stand on Feb 11th. We drafted a list of basic demandsthat night that had to be unconditionally met or we would stop making anddelivering pizza and go on strike. The demands were:
- 1) Abara and John get their jobs back Jeff Bloking (the owner's brother)has to go.
- 2) No workers are fired without Just Cause and without warning
- 3) No more racial slurs
- 4) A friendly, clean and safe work environment
- 5) Standardized breaks
- 6) Respect our right to unionize
The next day all the workers rode down to the shop in the bright orangepizza van. We gave each other high fives the whole way down to the shop. Shane arrived at work over 7 hours late and found his entire staff waitingfor him, except for Jesus who was out on delivery. Once he walked throughthe door we confronted him with our list of demands.
Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 06/24/2005 - 11:40pm
(This event was endorsed by the Baltimore IWW)
On June 17, 2005 the United Workers Association held a protest against Orioles owner Peter Angelos at Camden Yards. More than 100 United Workers Association members and their supporters threw “peanuts for poverty wages” at a model of Angelos and passed out peanuts to fans arriving for Friday’s game.
“Peter Angelos is a lying cheat, full of broken promises. He’s a cheating billionaire who says one thing and does another when it comes to ending poverty wages at the ballpark,” said James Riddick, a member of the United Workers Association.
Earlier that day members of the United Workers Association went to Angelos’s office on deliver package of peanuts for poverty wages. Security at Angelos’s office refused the shoe and the peanuts for poverty wages. Afterwards Angelos’s top aide, Tom Murudas, made a veiled threat to sue the organization of homeless and other low-wage workers for saying that Angelos “cheats workers.”
The United Workers Association would welcome a lawsuit between a baseball billionaire like Angelos and the homeless workers who clean up after Angelos’s baseball games.
Angelos’s top aide Marudas called Todd Cherkis, an organizer with the United Workers Association, and left a voice mail to imply that a lawsuit may be in the works over signs charging Angelos with cheating workers and paying peanuts for poverty wages. On the voice mail (which is available for reporters to listen to), Marudas said that the United Workers Association is “on legal softground” and that Angelos is “not going to take kindly to it [the signs].”
“We call Angelos a cheat for lying to workers, and he threatens to sue us. If he thinks we’re going to back down, he’s wrong,” said Riddick.
The United Workers Association organizes the low-wage workers of Maryland.
Why is the United Workers Association focusing on Peter Angelos?
Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 05/29/2005 - 4:05pm
By Peter Little - Bring the Ruckus
A month ago a call came into the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Hall in Portland. The front-end staff of a small, recently opened restaurant had struck the week before. The owner’s immediate response was to fire all four of the strikers. Although this was the IWW’s first contact with these workers, the union decided to support these workers in negotiating a settlement to the strike.
The negotiating committee of four workers and union representatives arrived at the restaurant at 9:15pm on a Sunday, approaching the owner on the sidewalk as he returned from taking an order on the patio. Catching his attention, they waited until he was through taking his order, and notified him that the IWW would now be representing the fired workers. When the union representatives requested a meeting be set up to discuss resolving the strike, the owner replied, "You are trespassing. If you don't leave my property right now, I’m calling the police." Although this response may seem typical, this was not your typical employer.
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