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August 5, 2006 - 7:28pm -- stevphen
News
Work

Starbucks Infamy: IWW Organizier Daniel Gross Terminiated

Starbucks Union

The Starbucks "investigation" of IWW member Daniel
Gross concluded today with his termination after more
than three years of organizing at the company.
Daniel's expression of solidarity at a union picket
line with co-worker and fellow union member, Evan
Winterscheidt, was deemed threatening by Starbucks
despite multiple eyewitnesses who confirm that Daniel
merely asserted to District Manager Allison Marx that
Evan should not be fired. With the termination of IWW
members Daniel Gross, Evan Winterscheidt, Joe Agins
Jr., and Charles Fostrom in less than a year,
Starbucks has demonstrated conclusively its intense
hostility to the right of workers to join a union.

To provide additional cover for the unlawful
termination, Starbucks issued Daniel a blatantly
discriminatory performance review today with negative
ratings for things like, "not communicating partner
morale issues to the Store Manager." The manager
confirmed that morale issues included complaints about
wages and working conditions. Last we checked, an
employer may not mandate an employee to engage in
surveillance of co-worker's protected activities.

Far from breaking our campaign, Starbucks has done the
opposite. The current and former Starbucks workers who
proudly carry the red Industrial Workers of the World
membership card vow to redouble our efforts to achieve
an independent voice on the job. The right to free
association at work is fundamental and not subject to
compromise. But to vindicate our right to union
membership, we need support from you, the working
class; the class that built this society with our
sweat and indeed with our blood.

July 30, 2006 - 1:05am -- stevphen
News
Work

IWW Starbucks Union Co-Founder Daniel Gross Facing Termination Pending "Investigation"

We need your solidarity now. Daniel Gross, an
organizer in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union, is being
"investigated" by the company over a protest he and
his co-workers participated in to support another IWW
barista, Evan Winterscheidt. Evan was suspended and
faced termination because of his union activity and
his fellow union members went to protest outside his
store to demand that he not be fired. Pending the
outcome of Starbucks' "investigation" into Daniel's
participation in this act of mutual aid, Starbucks
will decide whether or not to fire him. The decision
could take place any day so please take action now.

Over two years ago, Daniel Gross and a group of
co-workers formed the first union of Starbucks
baristas in the United States. Since then, the
campaign has grown to include union members publicly
fighting for a living wage and respect on the job at
six Starbucks locations. Baristas interested in
joining the IWW Starbucks Workers Union are currently
employed at locations around the country. Despite a
vicious anti-union campaign waged by Starbucks and its
Chairman Howard Schultz, the Wobbly baristas have won
three wage increases, more consistent scheduling, and
have remedied many individual grievances with the
company.

June 29, 2006 - 9:37am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"EuroMayDay's Social Contradictions"
Helsinki Network

The evening before Mayday Helsinki saw EuroMayDay event as a part of Europe-wide day of action.


The event was a breakthrough in Finland. It didn't only successfully attack the proposals to weaken social and labour rights — presented by the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) — but it also took initiative to introduce our demand for basic income. Now our demands are discussed from editorials to cafeterias.

First of all our demand for basic income is about less control on people's lives and a more just distribution of income. Basic income would be a remuneration for production outside wage labour and at the same time it would enhance the bargaining position of flexworkers.
One of the conflicts of current economy is that time spent working gets longer while share of GDP spent on wages is getting smaller.

June 21, 2006 - 2:34am -- stevphen
Announcements
Work

U.S. Conference Of Democratic Workplaces

The next national worker cooperative conference will take place October
13-15, 2006 in New York City. We are delighted to be able to hold the
conference at the Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at
the City University of New York

New York City! Won't that be expensive?

It doesn't have to be. The conference planners are making every effort
to keep the cost of the conference down so that it is accessible to
anyone who wants to come. We have booked a large block of affordable
rooms at the Vanderbilt YMCA and West Side YMCA. We will also offer free
housing at local homes to anyone who wants it. All conference meals will
be provided at an affordable price (we are currently researching
catering options - if you know of a good one, contact the USFWC office).
New York City offers exciting opportunities to connect with new worker
cooperatives, organized labor, community economic development groups,
international movements and presenters. We'll do everything we can to
make it easy to get to and from the city and the conference site. Look
for housing and ride boards online this summer.

What's this conference about?

We're still planning it, of course, but we can tell you a few things for
sure. The conference will offer a mix of workshops on everything from
how to start a worker co-op to personnel policies to franchising and
growth to the state of the economy and how it affects worker
cooperatives. We're also planning a special track of workshops focused
on Building Community Wealth, which will explore how we can strengthen
worker co-ops, as a community-based model of ownership, to address
social and economic inequities. This conference will also be the first
official meeting of the members of the U.S. Federation, at which the
Federation will hold elections, form working groups, and determine our
next steps.

June 14, 2006 - 1:37pm -- stevphen
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Resistance and Organization in Postfordism: On the Attempt of a Militant Research of Precarious Labor

Robert Foltin

A tool for recognizing class composition[1] is the "militant research " (or "questionnaire" or "workers inquiry" or "joint research"), which is currently experiencing an astonishing comeback in various contexts. The con-ricerca, which emerged in Italy in the 1960s, was intended to recognize the technical composition of the working class, and to not only recognize its political composition or recomposition (in other words the workers battles and organization), but also to promote and influence it. Communication and mutual information among the workers were to be set in motion and, as it was once bombastically formulated by Wildcat (still as the city paper for Karlsruhe), to prepare "spontaneous" battles (Karlsruher Stadtzeitung reprint 1985).

Based on the experience that many small actions of resistance against the capitalist system occurred again and again, especially after the major student strike in spring 1996 in Vienna and Austria[2], a small group was founded in 1997 that called itself "Koordination". Its goal was to promote communication and information about the battles and to step out of the ghetto of the scene at the same time. The name was inspired by the "Coordinations" in France. These had formed in all the strikes since the mid-1980s and never became integrated in dominant structures. Leftist organizations attempted to introduce permanence into the Coordinations, but they did not allow themselves to become bureaucratized as the self-organization of the revolts. They vanished with the end of demonstrations and strikes, but reappeared again with every new confrontation and picked up from their previous experiences.

Our "Koordination" was intended to be a tool to make communication and information available to the "small" battles. To this end we produced a regularly published information bulletin and also made its contents available on the net, which additionally served as an information pool for radical leftist papers (such as TATblatt). Due to a lack of battles in Vienna, however, in the long term we limited ourselves to collecting international news.

April 7, 2006 - 6:42am -- stevphen
Events
Work

PRE-MAYDAY EVENT with the Industrial Workers of the World

SATURDAY APRIL 29

THE SQUARE OCCUPIED SOCIAL CENTRE - 21 Russell Square
London WC1

4 pm - WORKPLACE ORGANISING TRAINING

with Adam Lincoln, IWW dual carder and
experienced trade unionist

6pm - 80th anniversary commemoration of the 1926 GENERAL STRIKE
Presentation:
The bitter lock-out, Days of hope in the General Strike, and the betrayal by the TUC - Dave Douglass, NUM & Wobbly veteran

with cookies and Zapatista coffee

Organised by the LONDON IWW

Location

SQUARE OCCUPIED SOCIAL CENTRE

21 Russell Square

London WC1, LND

United Kingdom

March 30, 2006 - 2:40am -- stevphen
Events
Work

Call to Attend the First National Workers’ Gathering
Event to Be Held April 29 in Mexico City

By Unions with the Other Campaign and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation March 26, 2006
To the urban workers that have adhered to the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign

To the workers that fight and to all the exploited:

We the undersigned, members of the Other Campaign that is being developed across the country, invite you to the First National Workers’ Gathering, which will be held Saturday, April 29, in the offices of the National Union of Uniroyal Workers, located at 95 Lago Plava, Huichapan neighborhood, Mexico City, to meet with the following goals:

1. Prepare for our participation in the commemoration of International Workers’ Day, May 1, across the country, in what we will call “The Other May 1.”

2. Democratically discuss a plan of struggle to defeat charrismo (corrupt union leadership) in all its expressions in our union organizations.

3. Promote the formation of a democratic, class-conscious, fighting international organization throughout the Other Campaign that allows us to face the struggle against the bosses and their government — both the current administration and the one that will be elected this July 2.

4. Strengthen our struggles through the formation of currents or groups based in the unions, in order to reclaim our organizations from the hands of agents of the bosses, the charros and the neo-charros.

5. Rescue the basic principles of the working class and our political participation in the life of the country.

6. Discuss a platform of struggle that allows us to reestablish the true role of the workers in society, independently and through struggle, with very clear goals, where the independence of the working class to develop its own political participation prevails.

7. Strengthen our unity with the poor peasant farmers, the indigenous, the popular sectors, the women, the youth, and other exploited and oppressed sectors of the prevailing capitalist society in our country, which are the only allies we can count on.

8. Surround with solidarity the different struggles that many of our compañeros are developing across the county, and create the necessary links with workers of other nations.
This call is completely open to the workers in general and to whoever is interested in this initiative, as long as it will be the workers who enjoy the space to reflect and reach agreements.

Sincerely,

National Revolutionary Union of Hulera Euzkadi Company Workers

National Union of Uniroyal Workers

Workers’ Group from the National Union of General Tire Workers

Workers’ Group from the Hulera Tornel Company

San Luis Potosí Solidarity Front for the Defense of Labor Rights

University of Guadalajara Union of Academic Personnel

National United Front of Active, Retired and Pensioned National Social Security Institute (IMSS) Workers

Collective of Trade Unionists with the Sixth Declaration

Central Unitaria de Trabajadores

Socialist Workers’ Party

Zapatista Army of National Liberation

If interested speak to the hosts of the gathering in Mexico City by calling 5591-0168 or 5703-2244, or by writing to posmex@prodigy.net.mx or
agnmex@yahoo.com.mx

March 10, 2006 - 5:51pm -- stevphen
Events
Work

LIBERTARIAN BOOK CLUB / ANARCHIST FORUM

ALTERNATIVE WORKER ORGANIZING and THE CRISIS IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT

panelists from Workers Solidarity Alliance; Industrial Workers of the World; Make the Road by Walking; Million Worker March

On Tuesday, March 14, at 7:30pm, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum
will present a panel of rank and file labor group members who will describe
their response to the current crisis in the U.S. labor movement. This crisis
is one in which the established unions continue to decline in membership
and the recent controversies in the official labor movement have done
little to show a new way forward. At the same time the power of the workers
on the job and in society in general continues to decrease.

The panel will also present alternative ways of worker organizing that can
restore the power of the labor movement. Recent experiences with immigrant
workers in Brooklyn, with the Starbucks organizing campaign and with
rank-and-file struggles among auto workers and in other sectors around the
country have shown that workers can organize without bureaucracy and as an
integral part of a struggle within the community for justice and equity.
The panelists will draw on their recent experiences and place them in the
larger context of the needed changes in the labor movmenet today.

After the presentation the panel will have an extensive open discussion
among themselves and with the audience about the state of the labor
movement and strategies for the future.

The event will take place at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street,
Manhattan (between Bank and Bethune streets) (212-242-4201).
Take an A, C, E, or L train to the 14th Street and 8th Avenue subway stop
or take a 1, 2, or 3 train to the 14th Street and 7th Avenue stop.

Everybody is welcome and invited to come and to have their say.
Admission is free for the presentation, but a contribution to aid the LBC is
suggested.

If you have questions, contact the LBC /Anarchist Forum, 212-979-8353 or
e-mail: roberterler@erols.com .

March 9, 2006 - 11:10am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Mathew G.H Toll writes:


"Australian Neo-Liberals Let Their Agenda Slip"

Matthew G.H. Toll


Senator Nick Minchin, leading member of the Australian federal government has been taped during a private meeting advocating further industrial relations reform if the liberal party is re-elected into another term.

"The fact is the great majority of Australians do not support what we are doing on industrial relations, they violently disagree," said Senator Minchin to HR Nicholls Society, a far-right wing group intent of the dissolution of the current IR system in favour a ‘flexible system’. Amounting to an IR system where workers rights effectively mean ‘take it or leave it’, lowering minimum wages and conditions.

March 9, 2006 - 12:21am -- stevphen
News
Work

Union Scores Big Victory Against Starbucks at Labor Board

Coffee Giant Must Rehire Fired Baristas and Rescind National Anti-Union
Policies

New York, NY- The IWW Starbucks Workers Union won a watershed victory
yesterday in the first National Labor Relations Board conflict over
unfair labor practices between the world's largest coffee chain and the
baristas who work there. Faced with the prospect of having its
widespread union-busting campaign exposed in a public hearing, Starbucks
agreed to remedy all of the myriad violations committed against workers
who have organized a union.

"We hope Starbucks' decision to settle reflects a strategic assessment
to cease what has been a relentless anti-union campaign and accept the
right of baristas to gain a voice on the job by joining together," said
Laura De Anda, one of the union members that prevailed in the
proceedings. "The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is here to stay."

Some highlights of the National Labor Relations Board settlement with
Starbucks include:

· The reinstatement of IWW members, Sarah Bender and Anthony Polanco,
who had been discharged for their union activity in order to discourage
other workers from making a free and fair choice about whether to join
the union.

· The invalidation of Starbucks' national policy that prohibited the
sharing of written union information and joining the union on company
property.

· The invalidation of Starbucks' national no-pin policy. Workers had
been banned from wearing IWW pins and had been sent home from work
without pay for refusing to take them off.

· An agreement by Starbucks to end threats, bribes, and surveillance of
union members.

· What would have been a hefty monetary penalty against Starbucks was
reduced because the IWW assisted its discharged members in obtaining
other employment which mitigates damages under the National Labor
Relations Act. Still, the company will pay out almost $2,000.

· And much more. To view the settlement agreement go
here.

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