Saturday, June 16, 2007

Ottowa's Jeffrey Monaghan Is No Anarchist!!!!11

Not an anarchist
The Leader-Post
Saturday, June 16, 2007

I am writing to correct the inaccurate use of the label "anarchist" as applied to me in the CanWest News Service article, "Former employee goes public about arrest" (Leader-Post, May 11.)

Contrary to its assertion, at no time have I self-identified as an anarchist.

Though I share many of the ideals of anarchism -- mutual aid, self-determination, equality and freedom, for example -- I decidedly eschew labels and identity politics.

My ethical standpoint is my own and not that of any ideology.support people, not ideology.

Continued...

ABC News Scum Insults Brave Congress Hotel Strikers

After four years, union workers and Congress Hotel are still at odds
By Ben Bradley
ABC 7 Chicago

June 15, 2007 - Four years ago Friday, workers walked off the job at Chicago's Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue.

On Friday night, dozens of housekeepers, waiters and other workers continued to walk the picket line demanding higher wages and improved benefits. This has become one of the longest running strikes in the nation and despite protestors with picket signs, guests continue to check-in. It is also worth mentioning that the two sides have not talked formally to resolve this matter in six months.

The number of strikers outside the Congress Hotel has ebbed and flowed over the last four years but every year on the anniversary of their walk-out, many of the original 115 strikers return. At least for one day, their numbers and spirits are bolstered by their union.

"This has been a tremendous strain for my family life," said Danny, a striking banquet server. "I have had to change my whole lifestyle completely because I lost my job."

Continued...

Lunch Ladies Rise up

Lunch ladies just looking for a little respect
They serve the food, monitor lunchrooms and feel invisible
June 3, 2007
BY MARK BROWN
Chicago Sun-Times Columnist

The lunch lady knows. The lunch lady knows when the kids aren't going to eat the meal she's been instructed to serve that day, and she knows when she's setting out food that they'll eat but probably shouldn't because of its negligible nutritional value.

The lunch lady knows which kids are vegetarians and which are diabetic. She knows who has a peanut allergy and who gets two meals because they're homeless.

She may not have a master's degree, but the lunch lady knows which kids mind their manners at school, and which ones go hungry at home because their parents are hooked on drugs.

'They treat us like we're not there'

Continued...

Friday, June 15, 2007

Zabalaza on Public Sector Strikes

ZACF Statement of Support for Public Sector Strike

This year, it was recommended by the Independent (state) Commission for the Remunaration of Public Office Bearers that President Thabo Mbeki get a 57,3% pay rise, taking his total package from R1,1-million to R1,8-million annually. The Commission also recommended that Members of Parliament receive a total of R650,000 annually. Compare this to the insulting 6% wage increase initially offered by the state to public sector workers, one of whom, a hospital clerk, told us she fed five mouths with an annual take-home salary of under R12,000.

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (southern Africa) supports the public sector strikers in South Africa, not just in their demand for a wage increase of 12%, which has now been reduced to 10%, but also in their struggle to improve the standard of all public sector services. We call on all workers and community members to show their support for this strike, as it is not just about wages but an attempt to raise the quality of public services provided to us all.

Continued...

Metalworkers on African Unions

Building sustainable unions in Africa

The IMF regional office in Africa works closely with affiliates to build international solidarity, strengthen trade unions and improve the lives of workers. As described in this report, the challenges are enormous requiring a strategic focus on building sustainable unions as can be seen in Tanzania and Swaziland.

REPORT BY STEPHEN NHLAPO

Successive waves of political, cultural and economic colonization and global power struggles have left Africa an economic shell. Today, human and mineral resources are extracted and small pockets of industrialisation remain to support the ongoing plunder. Alongside this, vast ghettos of poverty and suffering exist.

The countries that make up Africa are a diverse grouping in terms of geography, population size, language, wealth, distribution of wealth, life expectancy, health, public sector resources, trade union size and cohesion, labour market size and HIV prevalence.

The depth and deepening of poverty in many African countries has often not served to mobilize workers and their organisations but has in fact weakened them both politically and organisationally.

Continued...

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Russia: Mikhail Chesalin, dockers' leader, stabbed and beaten

Russia: Mikhail Chesalin, dockers' leader, stabbed and beaten
LabourStart

On Thursday June 7, Mikhail Chesalin, the chairman of the local Dockers Union of Russia in Kaliningrad, was savagely stabbed and beaten outside the union office. An unknown number of assailants attacked Chesalin when he got out of his car at 10:30am local time, stabbing him numerous times in the spine, and beating him severely about the head. He was left lying face-down, unconscious, in a pool of blood.

Chesalin's colleagues believe that the attack was orchestrated by Vladimir Kalinichenko, the General Director of the Sea Commercial Port where the dockworkers' union is currently running an organizing campaign. The union has been in a bitter fight with Kalinichenko for ten years, after Kalinichenko made it his personal goal to destroy the union following their 1997 strike – their battle, and the workers determination has become a symbol of Russia’s young, struggling independent trade union movement. Since April, the union has been conducting an unprecedented organizing drive among the workers in the Kaliningrad port to change a miserly and arbitrary wage system, and win respect and a voice on the job. Kalinichenko has tried to break up every union event by sending his personal "security" forces, together with local thugs, to spy on and intimidate workers.

Mikhail Chesalin is known throughout the region, country, and world, as one of Russia's foremost defenders of workers' rights – the dockworkers' case has received the attention of the ILO, the European Court for Human Rights, and most of all the attention of Kaliningrad residents, who voted for Chesalin when he ran directly against Kalinichenko in 2006 – with 13 times less money, Chesalin received four times the votes of Kalinichenko to be elected as a deputy to the regional parliament. In that sense this attack is not only on free trade unionism, but on an independent governmental representative.

Continued...

CtW Rocks the Capital Strategies

'Broker Votes': Opponents May Win One

NYSE and SEC Look To Rein In the Practice; Criticizing CVS Election
By KARA SCANNELL
Wall Street Journal

Investors who are growing increasingly vocal about the performance of executives and directors may soon get a boost, as the role of shareholder votes cast by brokers comes under closer scrutiny.

In routine matters at annual meetings, such as the election of uncontested directors, shares not voted by shareholders can instead be voted by the brokers who hold those shares, any way they want. That's created controversy in some votes recently, and has gained the attention of regulators, some of which are pushing for a change.

This question arose most recently in the case of Minnesota businessman Roger Headrick, who was re-elected to the board of CVS Caremark Corp. last month after receiving 606 million votes, or 57.2% of the total cast. CtW Investment Group, an arm of Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, says the contest was swung by 264 million "phantom" votes cast by brokers who hadn't received specific instructions from their clients.

Continued...

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Continued...

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

We're back motherfuckers

Dear Comrade-Enemies,

After a lengthy hiatus our beloved P-CRAC is born anew. We are in the process of relaunching a new blog site and currently have chapters in Seattle, Chicago and New York City.

We would regret our time away from you if we had anything but disdain for McAnarchyism, its adherents and inanity... but the truth is we hate you all as much as we love you.

Yes. We love you. Like a mother that drowns her babies.

We will assimilate you or destroy you. The choice is yours.

On behalf of P-CRAC,

Thugarchist
Minister of Propaganda