Work

"Manifesto Against Labour"

Gruppe Krisis

1. The rule of dead labour

A corpse rules society -- the corpse of labour. All powers around the globe formed an alliance to defend its rule: the Pope and the World Bank, Tony Blair and Jörg Haider, trade unions and entrepreneurs, German ecologists and French socialists. They don't know but one slogan: jobs, jobs, jobs!

Iraqi Oil Workers Expel KBR

December 12, 2003 - 11:01am -- nolympics

renegado submits:

"Iraqi Oil Workers Throw Out KBR, Reconstruct Their Own Workplaces Autonomously"
Ewa Jasiewicz, Occupation Watch
Occupied Basra, 12/12/03

Southern Oil Company Trade Unionists have declared their workplaces a no-go zone for Halliburton, formerly headed by US Vice President Dick Cheny's, subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. KBR was give a no-bid contract by USAID to reconstruct bomb-shattered oil refineries and installations in Iraq. Included in the contracts was authorisation to export and market Iraqi Oil. The SOC Union however, representing over 10,000 workers has banned all KBR representatives and foreign workers from entering their sites. SOC Union Head Hassan Jum'a says, ''Till this moment we haven't needed any foreigners to come in. We can do everything ourselves'.

Worker unrest erupted in Bergeseeya oil refinery and control section in October following the employment of Indian and Pakistani labourers by Kuwaiti subcontractors Al Khorrafi Company. Workers staged a wildcat two-day strike, physically threw out the foreign workers and demanded a portion of the 70% unemployed population of Iraq be employed instead. The employment of foreign labourers was halted immediately.

Cops and Security Guards Riot in Baghdad - report

November 24, 2003 - 2:06pm -- hydrarchist

renegado writes
Cops and Security Guards Riot in Baghdad - report from Ewa in Baghdad,

17.11.2003 10:13

*NEWSFLASH*
- read report below but bear in mind that news just came in of another proetst, same place, same issue, taking place now as none of the protestors demands have been met....

Baghdad, 16/11/2003: Ministry Security Guards and Police Besiege Their
Bosses, Take Over Street – Minister of the Interior Forced to Address and
Appease Crowd

From approximately 10am yesterday, Governing Council Ministry security
guards and Iraqi police protested outside the central Baghdad security
bureau in Sadoon Street over the withholding of their wages.

The Sadoon street bureau has been the location of at least three previous
protests in the last two months.

Mario Tronti, "Workers and Capital"

November 8, 2003 - 3:49pm -- jim

"Workers and Capital"

Mario Tronti

The Progressive Era

The working class after Marx can be approached historically in two ways. One is chronological. It reconstructs the great cycles of the labor struggle from the 1870s, followed by a series of facts that constitute its history. It would include the history of labor in industry, of industry in capital, of capital in politics and in political events, along with the great theorization -- what was once called the history of ideas -- the first sociology, the last systematic form attained by economics, and the birth of a new scientific discipline: that theory of technological reality which is the science of labor and the enemy of the worker. Traditional historiography encapsulates it between 1870 and 1914. To be generous and to avoid constantly upsetting the mental habits of the average intellectual, it may even be possible to enclose this epoch's first great block of facts in "their" history and move towards us and the new labor struggles constituting the real political drama of our side of the story -- even if it is only at its beginning

The other approach is to move through great historical events by pausing on macroscopic groups of facts yet untouched by the critical consciousness of labor thought (Pensiero operaio) and therefore excluded from a class understanding that translates them into a political use of their consequences. When relevant, these events isolate a fundamental aspect of capitalist society. They cut a cross-section that goes from a series of struggles to a set of political-institutional, scientific, or organizational answers.

George Monbiot, "The Flight to India"

October 27, 2003 - 11:39am -- jim

An anonymous coward writes:

"The Flight to India:

The Jobs Britain Stole from the Asian Subcontinent 200 Years Ago Are Now Being Returned"
George Monbiot, October 21, 2003, The Guardian

If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.

"Rouge Steel Sold to Russians"

October 25, 2003 - 11:00am -- jim

"Rouge Steel Sold to Russians"

Mike Hudson / The Detroit News

DEARBORN -- Rouge Industries Inc., the steelmaking giant of Ford Motor Co.'s
historic Rouge industrial complex, was acquired Thursday by a Russian
steelmaker after years of staggering financial losses.
Rouge Industries, founded 80 years ago by Henry Ford, filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection Thursday as part of the sale agreement.

Mark Engler, "Take Back Your Time Day"

October 24, 2003 - 8:21am -- jim

An anonymous coward writes:

""You May Justifiably Want to Take Friday Off"
Mark Engler, Newsday, October 22, 2003

Mark Engler, a writer based in Brooklyn, is a former analyst with the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress in San Jose, Costa Rica.

On Friday, a small but growing number of Americans will celebrate "Take Back Your Time Day," calling out of work to honor the vacation they don't have.

This peculiar holiday was organized by a committee of economists and nonprofit advocates in response to the fact that, as a society, we are working more than ever before. Come Friday, if our country's work load were on a par with the rest of the industrialized world, you would have the rest of 2003 off.

SEIU Local 880 Homecare Workers Win First Union Contract

October 24, 2003 - 7:59am -- jim

SEIU Local 880 homecare worker writes:

Illinois Governor Blagojevich signed the first union contract with over 20,000 SEIU Local 880 Personal Assistants working through the Illinois Department of Human Services/Office of Rehabilitation Services (DHS/ORS) Tuesday afternoon. The historic event wrapped up what has been a summer of tremendous strides for the State’s Homecare workers.

Ewa, "Report on Condition of the Working Class in Iraq"

October 22, 2003 - 9:19am -- jim