Pie-Card Revolutionary Anarchist Collective

H & M Workers Win RWDSU UFCW Representation Thanks to Innovative Pact

2007-11-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

H & M Workers Win RWDSU UFCW Representation Thanks to Innovative Pact (11/20/07)

More than 1,000 employees of the H & M clothing store chain have won the right to be represented by the RWDSU as a result of an innovative agreement between H&M, a Sweden-based company and the union the RWDSU is affiliated with; the United Food and Commercial Workers. The pact with H & M is one of a series of agreements the company has reached with affiliates of Union Network International, a world-wide coalition of labor unions that has pressed the Swedish retailer to accept unionization.

Under the terms of an agreement negotiated earlier this year, H & M agreed to a process called “card check recognition” which required the company to respect the decision of employees to have representation once a majority signed cards affirming their support for the union. The company also pledged not to interfere with the workers’ efforts to organize.

“By respecting the right of employees to join our union, H & M is setting an example other retailers should follow,” said RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum, adding that he expects the National Labor Relations to certify the union as the workers’ collective bargaining agent.

Continued...

Got Sleep Deprivation? Get Bakunin Bio

2007-10-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

Review: Bakunin: The Creative Passion
by Anarcho
Anarkismo

A review of Mark Leier's excellent new biography of Bakunin.

Bakunin: The Creative Passion
Mark Leier
Thomas Dunne Books

At last! A biography of Bakunin by someone who knows what they are writing about. I have long despaired at the utter ignorance and lack of common-sense when academics and others have approached anarchism, particularly Bakunin. Whether the product of ignorance or maliciousness, they seem intend on misrepresenting Bakunin’s ideas and life. Leier refutes such accounts and sets the record straight. He does this with flair and knowledge, making his book highly recommended.

Informal, yet informed, Leier presents an excellent introduction to the life and ideas of Bakunin. Even the biggest Bakunin fan (and I admit to being one!) will find something new or of interest in Leier’s work. His account of Bakunin’s life and ideas is rich in detail and in understanding of both anarchism and the social and political times and circles Bakunin lived in. Leier presents a picture of Bakunin’s early years based on the latest research and which shows his intellectual development within Russian radical circles, showing his important role in these as well as his early commitment to women’s equality. He outlines Bakunin’s activities in the 1848 revolution, plus his period of imprisonment by numerous monarchies across Europe because the Tsar got his hands on him and placed him in solitary confinement. Bakunin’s escape from exile and subsequent return to revolutionary politics takes the reader to the First International and the conflict with Marx.

Continued...

UAW Sucks Ass

2007-09-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

Please note that P-CRAC is not interested in discussing the farce that has gone on between the UAW and GM. Gettlefinger's such a giant pussy he should drive a GM Dildomobile.

Imbeciles down Under

2007-09-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

Govt considers inquiry into TWU claims
The West Australian

The federal government will consider holding an inquiry into claims the powerful Transport Workers Union (TWU) diverted cash into a slush fund to assist the Labor election campaign.

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey said Tuesday's cabinet meeting in Sydney would decide whether there should be a full investigation of these allegations.

Labor has undertaken to back any such inquiry.

"We are considering an inquiry that would have a look at the very serious allegations that have been raised involving the Transport Workers Union," Mr Hockey told ABC radio.

"The most concerning allegation is that the TWU traded off higher salaries for workers in exchange for the funds going into a secret account that is funding the ALP's campaign at the next federal election."

That follows a report on this week's Nine Network Sunday program which has forced the TWU to conduct an independent audit of its Industrial Rights Training and Education Fund.

Mr Hockey said there appeared to be a substantial amount of evidence, including testimony from individuals involved in the TWU as well as what appeared to be a large number of emails and written documents.

He said that information proved that the account existed and was being used for inappropriate purposes.

Mr Hockey said it was a good thing that Labor had promised to support any government inquiry.

Continued...

Ummmm... Industrial Strategy Anyone?

2007-09-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

SEIU Canada: Casino Workers in Halifax Win Overwhelming Victory in Union Vote
MarketWire

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA--(Marketwire - Sept. 8, 2007) - At the conclusion of long-awaited Labour Relations Board proceedings conducted this past week, ballot boxes for workers at Casino Nova Scotia in Halifax were opened after a four-month delay since their May 3rd/4th 2007 union certification vote. Workers at the Casino and representatives of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are now celebrating an overwhelming victory for gaming sector employees in Halifax.

The results of the Labour Board hearings and vote-counting proceedings, which concluded just prior to 11 pm on Friday night, determined that 231 Casino employees voted in favour of making improvements in their workplace through joining the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 902, while 85 employees voted against.

This overwhelming victory of over 73% of the votes counted confirms what has been termed an historic victory for the labour movement in Nova Scotia and the largest successful private-sector union organizing victory in well over twenty-five years in this province.

"This is a great achievement," says Sharleen Stewart, SEIU Canadian International Vice-President. "Halifax Casino workers now have a strong voice in their workplace."

Continued...

Anarchists Buy Support: Brilliant New Strategy Unfolds

2007-09-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

NZ strangers stun residents with gifts
AAP

Strange happenings are afoot in the New Zealand city of Tauranga.

Residents have been stunned by the generosity of strangers who are walking the streets handing out envelopes stuffed with cash.

Recipients have described a very happy looking couple, urging them to accept their gifts.

"Take it, take it," the couple simply said as they thrust an envelope of money towards Steph Morgan and Rose Bakker as they headed out for lunch.

The words "Anarchy is love of freedom" written on a purple card accompanied the money.

Continued...

Socialists Hate Andy! Boo-fn-hoo...

2007-09-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

No More “Partnership” — Labor Needs to Organize a Fightback
By Tony Wilsdon
Socialist Alternative

As Corporate American continues to attack workers’ wages, working conditions, and benefits, the need for a fighting labor movement is more vital than ever.

Given the failure of the AFL-CIO’s leadership to successfully resist this corporate offensive, many union members’ hopes were raised when Andy Stern, leader of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), pulled his union out of the AFL-CIO promising a new direction for labor.

Stern and SEIU went on to found an alternative federation, Change to Win (CtW), that includes the Teamsters, Laborers, Carpenters, Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Farm Workers, and Hotel and Restaurant Workers (UNITE HERE) - about 6 million members in total. But two years after the creation of Change to Win, what has been achieved?

Stern focused his criticism of the AFL–CIO on the need to put more resources into hiring more organizers. SEIU has put more resources into organizing, and the UFCW and UNITE HERE have made splashy campaign efforts against Wal-Mart and the hotel chains. But no real progress has been made in unionizing new workers. The real issue is not more resources; it’s how to organize workers, and around what program.

Stern has been going out of his way to talk to Corporate America, including working with Wal-Mart. At a recent conference of corporate lawyers, he said: “SEIU’s goal for 2006 is to bring unions and employers together as partners, not enemies.”

Continued...

Anarchists Smash Corporate America

2007-09-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Bellevue, Wash.: Anarchists Sabotage 50 Bathrooms In Mall

On Monday, August 27th, members of Anarchist Sanitation Saboteurs (ASS) sabotaged over 50 bathrooms in and around the Bellevue Mall. This was done while Bush was in town and people were outside protesting him. This was done under the eyes of the Secret Service, the police and mall security.

The mall is a revolting symbol of capitalist ignorance and stupidity. ASS chose a day when one of the leaders of world capitalism was in town, to flood Starbucks bathrooms (with love directed towards the IWW), glue stall doors shut, remove sensitive items from toilets and leave our mark on wall after wall.

Our intention was not to inconvenience janitors. We acknowledge that janitors had to clean up after us and we are sorry. But that is their job and they receive money for their services. If you are a janitor and would like to lodge a complaint, get a marker and write to ASS on the wall of the affected bathroom.

The mainstream media did not report this action nor will they. We hope that they will prove us wrong. It takes 15 seconds to get a toilet on the road to overflow. Open the flush box. Cut the hose. Close the flush box. Walk away. Within ten minutes the bathroom will begin to flood. Spread this information widely. You are the only ones who can.

Flood the bathrooms of every corporate store!

- Anarchist Sanitation Saboteurs (ASS)

We're getting ready! RNC Welcoming Committee Trailer

2007-09-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to the spirit of middle-class angst everywhere!!!11

Eastern Washington over-run by anarchist hordes

2007-09-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Spokane Anarchists

Organizer Trainer

2007-08-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

Organizers, Activists and future Labor Leaders Wanted

Service Workers Rising! Hotel Workers Rising!

The rights of working people throughout the United States and Canada are disappearing. The labor movement is looking for committeed people to organizers workers and fight for a better future. Our program involves a comprehensive training in union, community organizing and a chance to be a part of a movement that is making real change in our world.

No Experience necesary, just a commitment to social justice.

Send resumes to Sheila Gainer at unitehere.sg@gmail.com before September 19th, 2007.

For more information about UNITE HERE, please check out the links below:
UNITE HERE!
Hotel Workers Rising
Service Workers Rising
Congress Hotel Strike

ChuckO Munson: Gorilla Extrordinaire

2007-08-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

G-Men and Anarchist Bookstores Just Don't Mix
The Pitch
Nadia Pflaum

On the same day that a presidential visit snarled traffic around Bartle Hall (really, was building the convention center to straddle the highway such a great idea?), U.S. marshals paid a visit to our local anarchist bookstore – and it wasn’t to pick up some Kafka.

Volunteer Chuck Munson was manning the Crossroads Infoshop and Radical Bookstore at 3109 Troost around 3 in the afternoon last Wednesday when he found a “posse” of U.S. marshals outside the store. Munson writes on his blog that a “woman agent, who was wearing a vest and had weapons, (was) asking questions of two people inside our store.” “I challenged her to show a warrant and she responded that she didn’t need to show a warrant.”

Munson writes that he felt threatened by the female marshal after she told him that he “didn’t want to go there” with her.

Continued

NYC Taxi Drivers Alliance Promises to over GPS Plans

2007-08-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

August 06, 2007 (Computerworld) -- New York taxi drivers have promised to go on strike next month unless the city halts plans to require that Global Positioning System technology be installed in the city’s 13,000 cabs by early next year.

Members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents about 8,400 drivers, are worried that their bosses will track their whereabouts even when they are off-duty, according to statements from six drivers and Executive Director Bhairavi Desai.

At a press conference late last month, driver Lea Acey said a GPS is “like an ankle bracelet they put on criminals.” The alliance plans to announce a strike date in mid-August.

Diebold must fix its optical scanner by Aug. 17.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission last week said that it does not plan to change the schedule for implementing the Technology Enhancements Service Project, which would let passengers pay fares via credit cards, eliminate some paper records and let riders watch the taxi’s route in real time on a screen.

Under the plan, all taxicab owners must sign contracts with one of four approved technology vendors — Creative Mobile Technologies LLC, Digital Dispatch Systems Inc., Taxi Technology Corp. or VeriFone Transportation Systems Inc. — this month and have the systems installed between Oct. 1 and Jan. 31.

“It’s reasonable for an employer to deploy GPS,” said Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group in Ashland, Mass., who has consulted on GPS projects.

“This is not 1984 or tracking citizens,” he said. “It is tracking people with objects, and it will improve efficiency.”

At the same time, Mathias said he understands the concerns. “People are rightly worried about Big Brother,” he said. “It should not be used unless consent is given.”

Pigs Pose as Blac Bloc at Montebello Summite; Try to Provoke Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) Members

2007-08-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

Pigs Attack Trade Unionist In His Own Home

2007-08-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

JCPD BLACK & BLUE
He called cops - they beat, cuffed him
Thursday, August 23, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A Jersey City man called cops Monday night when he saw what looked like
burglars on his roof and said he was then badly beaten by arriving
officers, who apparently thought he was a burglar as he ran to the front
door to let them in.

Mathias Bolton, 34, of Palisade Avenue near Bowers Street, suffered a
broken arm, black eye, possibly a broken foot, and many abrasions on his
arms, back and shoulders, as a result of the incident on Monday at 10:11
p.m., he said.

On top of that, Bolton was charged with aggravated assault on a police
officer and resisting arrest, but after he appeared in Central Judicial
Processing Court in Jersey City yesterday, the charges were downgraded to
simple assault and a lesser degree of resisting arrest. The case was
remanded to Municipal Court.

Police Chief Tom Comey said yesterday that there would be an investigation
of the incident.

"I would urge everyone not to rush to judgment," Comey said.

Bolton said he heard a noise on his roof and when he looked out a skylight
saw two men trying to break in, so he called police and was told a car
would be sent. After hanging up he ran downstairs to open the front door
because there is no bell, Bolton said.

"I opened the door and midway up the steps were two thug-looking guys in
jeans and T-shirts, and they looked pretty tough," said Bolton.

In fact, they were plainclothes Police Officers Victor Vargas and Kevin Hill.

Bolton said the two didn't identify themselves or display badges - a point
the officers disputed in the police report of the incident.

"These guys rushed me and I heard sirens in the distance and my first
thought was, these guys might be connected to the burglars," Bolton said.

He said the officers were grabbing him and screaming "Did you call
police?" which Bolton said made him think they were burglars and were
angry at him.

He said the pair were trying to push him back into the building.

Bolton said he braced himself to resist being pushed in and he was punched
in the face a number of times. He was still able to stop them pushing him
in and could hear the sirens getting closer, Bolton said.

When the cruisers arrived, Bolton said, he yelled: "Officer, officer, come
get these guys off me. I need help."

As the uniformed cops approached with night sticks out, he said he figured
those punching him would get beaten, but instead the arriving cops laid
into him, Bolton said.

He told police he was the one who called them but they put him in a police
car as confusion seemed to grow among the officers, Bolton said.

In a police report filed about the incident, the cops said Bolton ran to
the door, looked surprised and was out of breath. The officers said they
identified themselves and had their badges out, and that when they asked
Bolton if he called police and did he need help Bolton responded, "What?"

The police report says Bolton tried to close the door but an officer held
it open and then Bolton punched him in the chest and tried to push his way
through.

They grabbed him and told him they were investigating a burglary and
Bolton replied, "So get the hell off me," and then fell trying to run
away, kicking at Hill and Vargas while down, the reports said.

When the cruiser arrived, the report said, Bolton said: "Get the
(expletive) off me. Who are you guys?"

According to the police report, after the uniformed officers were on the
scene, Bolton said, "OK, I give up. I'm sorry" and was taken to the police
station and then to the hospital for treatment of what the report calls
"minor scrapes."

Bolton is director of research for a union in New York City and has a
master's degree from Rutgers University in industrial management labor
relations, said his Jersey City attorney, John Burke. Bolton said his
father is a retired Paterson police officer.

Police said the officers involved would not comment.

Bolton is to appear in municipal court on Sept. 5.

© 2007 The Jersey Journal
© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

IDF Soldiers Hijack Taxi, Shoot Palestinian Workers in West Bank Factory

2007-08-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Six Israeli soldiers run amok in West Bank

AM - Tuesday, 21 August , 2007 08:12:00
Reporter: David Hardaker

PETER CAVE: Israel's Defence Forces, the IDF, are investigating six soldiers who commandeered a Palestinian taxi, tied up the driver and then shot at random at workers outside a factory in the West Bank.

The IDF denies the incident is part of a culture of abuse, but it's holding investigations into the moral and ethical conduct of its forces.

Middle East Correspondent David Hardaker reports.

DAVID HARDAKER: It's one of the darkest tales to emerge from Israel's occupation - the day half a dozen soldiers ran amok, shooting an innocent young Palestinian and then attempted a cover-up.

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: I think you can categorise this as being indecent and immoral.

DAVID HARDAKER: Captain Benjamin Rutland from the Israeli Defence Forces.

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: We're taking steps to make sure that this sort of event will never occur again in the future.

DAVID HARDAKER: It was morning in the town of Dahariya - a small, isolated place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

An officer in the Israeli Defence forces, the IDF, had been ordered to go out on foot patrol. Instead, he and five other soldiers took off their uniforms and set off on their own black operation.

First they stopped a passing taxi at gunpoint. They ordered the passengers out, tied up the driver, blindfolded him and held him in the back of the taxi.

A young Palestinian, 18 years old - called Adham Samamara - walked outside the factory where he was working and noticed a car stopped on the road.

"Arab, I thought they were Arabs," he says. "The car had West Bank numberplates and they were wearing civilian clothes.

"It's not unusual for people to stop outside our factory, to get some water and wanting some help," he says.

So, wanting to help, Adham Samamara walked towards the car. Within a minute, and without any warning, he was hit by a bullet in the chest. He remembers the sound.

(Sound of Adham Samamara making sound of gunfire)

"And," he says, "there was lots of pain."

Here, at his home, surrounded by family, the 18-year-old lifts his shirt and reveals the scars where the bullet entered his chest and then came out through his left side.

"It was a criminal act, what happened to Adham," his uncle says. "You should've seen the atmosphere in this house, we thought he was dead, we were frantic."

(Sound of machinery operating)

Outside the tile factory where Adham Samamara works, you can still see his blood mixed in the sand.

(Sound of Adham Samamara talking)

Israeli soldiers also shot at another employee, but they missed him, and they took off from the scene, leaving Adham Samamara lying bleeding in the street. The soldiers involved at first lied about what they'd done that morning. They claimed that Adham Samamara had approached them in a threatening manner.

Captain Benjamin Rutland from the IDF.

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: The IDF takes this event very, very seriously, and as a consequence, the fact that he disobeyed orders, did not get approval and placed both his soldiers and civilian lives in danger is very, very serious for us.

DAVID HARDAKER: The junior officer who was the ringleader that morning has been charged with a number of offences and may end up in jail. The other five soldiers are being investigated.

As well, there's been an investigation into the soldiers' entire battalion.

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: We're trying to work out whether the whole battalion had some sort of ethical-moral problem.

DAVID HARDAKER: Benjamin Rutland.

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: Within any group you may have a bad apple here or there. We devote considerable attention to making sure the people are given ethical training and learn exactly where the lines are.

DAVID HARDAKER: Is it a bad apple here or there, or is there in fact a systemic problem in the IDF which critics would say has come from 40 years of occupation?

BENJAMIN RUTLAND: I don't believe that there is a systemic problem. As we denoted, this is a discussion related to one particular battalion, amongst many within the IDF.

DAVID HARDAKER: The head of Israel's Defence Forces has said the incident is now to be included in IDF training.

Adham Samamara says he's pleased Israel has admitted it was in the wrong.

His uncle, Moussa, is happy too that the soldiers' lies were found out, because, he says, normally any act in the West Bank is considered a terrorist act, but this time they were forced to tell the truth.

Dude Gets Arrested for Teh International @narkiiii!!11

2007-08-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

American anarchist faces criminal charges in Spain
Associated Press

McLEAN, Virginia: Peter Gelderloos would admit he is not your typical American tourist. While other Americans in Barcelona might be hopping between tapas bars, he was hanging out at a squatters' rights protest, lending support to the protesters.

But police in Barcelona say he was more than an innocent bystander. They charged him with public disorder and illegal demonstration for what they characterize as an instigating role in the April protest that got out of control. He could face up to six years in prison if convicted, an unusually stiff penalty because of the protest's conclusion — the explosion of a massive firecracker.

Gelderloos, 25, of Vienna, Virginia, says the charges are ridiculous. He says he barely knew the protesters and could not have been involved in organizing or leading them. He believes that his political beliefs — he is an anarchist who sometimes dresses the part — caused police to treat him suspiciously.

"The cop was sure I was a terrorist because he was sure I was a squatter, and he was sure I was a squatter because he thought I looked like one (I was wearing a political t-shirt and had some slogans scribbled on my shoes)," Gelderloos wrote in an account of his arrest that has been posted on Web sites dedicated to radical political causes.

Continued...

Baltimore Stadium Workers Plan Hunger Strike for Living Wage

2007-08-14T05:34:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Stadium Workers Plan Hunger Strike for Living Wage

by James Parks, Aug 13, 2007

The workers who clean up plastic cups, peanut shells, spilled beer and hot dogs left by nearly 49,000 fans after games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore have been fighting for higher wages and better working conditions for three years.

The United Workers Association (UWA), a Baltimore worker center, which represents the nearly 800 mainly immigrant workers, says the subcontractors who employ them have reneged on promises to pay a living wage. The workers make about $7 an hour. The national median hourly salary of janitors and cleaners is $9.58, according to the U.S Department of Labor.

Harriet Tubman at Daily Kos says these workers are fed up with the broken promises. They plan to launch a hunger strike Sept. 3 and continue until they are paid a living wage.

One of the workers is Valerie, a 55-year-old single woman who says she doesn’t make enough to pay her bills and take care of herself. (See video.) She says working for $7 an hour makes me feel real bad. I work hard for my money, and to get paid $7 [means] I don’t even have extra money to treat myself to McDonald’s.

In May, Maryland passed a law requiring contractors to pay workers a living wage. The Maryland law—the first in the nation for a state—requires service contractors doing business with the state to pay employees $11.30 an hour in urban areas and $8.50 an hour in rural areas. The state’s minimum wage is $6.15 an hour.

Although the state owns the stadium, the cleaning crews are not covered by the law, which exempts part-time and temporary workers. As a state agency, the Maryland Stadium Authority, which owns Oriole Park, does not have to follow Baltimore’s living wage ordinance requiring city contractors to pay workers at least $9.62 an hour. The Baltimore ordinance was the first in the nation when enacted in 1994.

Through protests, rallies and concerts, the workers are calling on the Stadium Authority to push for a hourly wage of at least $9.62 when the cleaning contract comes up for renewal next year.

Some 150 day laborers are hired to clean during and after Baltimore Orioles home games. The cleanup takes six to eight hours. Temporary workers also clean M&T Bank Stadium (next door to Oriole Park) after Baltimore Ravens home football games.

The day laborers are hired by temp agencies in Baltimore. Michigan-based Knight Facilities Management, which won the contract to clean Oriole Park and M&T stadium for about $1.9 million a year, subcontracts with the temp agencies to find workers. The state contract expires in January 2008.

The workers also say some subcontractors charge employees a transportation fee, amounting to $6 per round trip. They also say they are not paid for the time they wait to be let into the stadium after the games. Workers say they are told by the subcontractors to be at the stadium up to two hours before their cleaning shift begins. But not all workers who wait are picked for the job, they say.

The bottom line is one of fairness, Kim Thompson told the Baltimore Sun. Thompson, 32, of Baltimore, began working at the stadium a month ago. She said the work can be exhausting, wiping down seats, picking up debris and hauling trash bags.

It’s sickening how much trash is left. We have to come in and clean it up for a little bit of money.

UFCW Statement: Bush Administration Immigration Program Would Legalize Racial Discrimination

2007-08-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Statement from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union: Bush Administration Immigration Program Would Legalize Racial Discrimination

Planned Enforcement Actions Threaten to Disrupt Innocent Workers and Communities

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following is a statement from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union:

On a hot, quiet August morning in Washington, DC - when the President is on vacation and Congress at recess - the Bush Administration announced an immigration reform package that essentially mandates federal racial discrimination.

The Administration's guidelines would throw the doors open to racial
discrimination to whole classes of people by placing an undue burden
on workers who sound foreign, look foreign and particularly, on the
tens of millions of Hispanic and Asian-Americans who would face
greater scrutiny in the workplace. It is irresponsible to toss out
civil rights for the sake of political gamesmanship.

Considering the circumstances, today's announcement smacks of nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at terrifying immigrant workers. Further, this program lacks the support and mandate of the American people who have been demanding humane, comprehensive immigration reform that addresses the root causes of illegal immigration. This program offers no solutions, only punishments to workers.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has proven by its past
behavior that it is not beyond their scope to traumatize innocent
workers, including U.S. citizens, under the guise of immigration
enforcement. During its raids at Swift meatpacking plants last
December, all workers, including citizens, legal residents, were held by ICE agents and subjected to unlawful search and seizure. Law
enforcement must uphold and defend the Constitution, not violate it.

Congress and the President promised the American people it would work toward solutions to these problems but both parties have failed. It is time for our elected leaders to get back to work - not with unauthorized, sweeping gestures like this Bush enforcement program.

Stupid Independent Union Tries Organize UPS

2007-08-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

Posted on Wed, Aug. 08, 2007
KCK UPS Freight terminal workers vote against joining union
By RANDOLPH HEASTER
The Kansas City Star

Workers at the area UPS Freight Inc. terminal decisively rejected a labor group’s attempt to organize them.

According to a three-day election concluded Tuesday by the National Labor Relations Board, 203 employees voted against joining the Association of Parcel Workers of America, while 66 voted in favor of the group.

Dan Hubbel, assistant director of the NLRB’s regional office, said 339 hourly employees were eligible to vote.

It was a big setback for the North Carolina-based group that has tried to establish itself as an alternative to the Teamsters union. The UPS Freight terminal in Kansas City, Kan., was the first site that the parcel workers association tried to organize.

The Teamsters represent nearly 240,000 employees at UPS parcel and package operations, which is in the middle of negotiating a new national contract, although it does not represent UPS Freight workers here. UPS Freight, a less-than-truckload carrier, was known as Overnite Transportation Co. until UPS bought it in 2005.

The Teamsters represent 125 employees at UPS Freight’s Indianapolis facility, where the union and the company are also in contract talks. Other than that terminal, the company is a nonunion operation.

Van Skillman, the parcel workers association president and a UPS package driver in Greensboro, N.C., said a straw poll taken last week indicated the Kansas City, Kan., work force would vote to join the association.

“In a week’s time, things changed dramatically,” he said. “I don’t know what happened in Kansas City. I have my suspicions, but I won’t say anything more while I’ve got our people looking into it.”

The parcel workers association also has filed with the NLRB to hold union elections at UPS Freight sites in Gaffney, S.C., and Pittsburgh.

UPS Freight said its work force in Kansas City, Kan., had spoken.

“We’ve always maintained that it’s the employees’ choice as to whether they want a union,” said Ira Rosenfeld, a UPS Freight spokesman. “We should respect that, and the employees chose to remain union-free.”

The Teamsters said it is negotiating a contract with UPS Freight in Indianapolis that will be a model for other UPS terminals around the country.

“The APWA doesn’t even have records on file with Department of Labor,” said Harold McLaughlin, president of Teamsters Local 41 in Kansas City. “Freight workers at UPS Freight should get the best workplace representation that they can — and that’s with the Teamsters union.”

Safety Not Kosher at this Slaughterhouse

2007-08-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

Food Safety Records Add to Woes of Nation’s Largest Kosher Slaughterhouse

Nathaniel Popper | Thu. Aug 09, 2007

The nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, already the subject of allegations about its treatment of workers and the animals it slaughters, has also been chastised by government regulators for its food safety record, according to newly released documents

The AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, received 250 non-compliance records from the United States Department of Agriculture during 2006, five of them for inadequate safeguards against Mad Cow disease, and multiple others for fecal matter in the food production area. While the entire beef, poultry and egg industry had 34 recalls in 2006, AgriProcessors had two during the last eight months, both of them Class I, the highest risk level....

NYC: The Deliverymen’s Uprising

2007-08-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Deliverymen’s Uprising
By Jennifer Gonnerman
New York Magazine

For $1.75 an hour, they put up with abusive employers, muggers, rain, snow, potholes, car accidents, six-day weeks, and lousy tips. Not anymore.

In New York’s expanding service economy, deliverymen occupy a position near the bottom—earning less than doormen, security guards, nannies, maids, tailors, taxi drivers, and trash collectors and working in far more treacherous conditions. They work long hours and cover huge territories, often in inclement weather, dodging perils like potholes, taxi doors, and tow trucks (one of which killed a deliveryman last year)—all the while hoping they don’t get robbed along the way. And they do this for pay that is often less than the minimum wage.

But that may be about to change. Since last fall, some 70 Chinese deliverymen—including Justin and his co-workers at Ollie’s—have filed lawsuits against five Manhattan restaurants. Never before have so many restaurant deliverymen joined together to battle their bosses. It’s the Year of the Chinese Deliverymen—the year they decided to revolt.

German Railway Union Threatens Open-ended Strike

2007-08-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Germany faces travel chaos in rail strike

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

Financial Times

Published: August 6 2007 18:12 | Last updated: August 6 2007 18:12

Germany’s national railway operator is steeling itself for its toughest industrial action for 15 years after members of a rebel engine drivers’ union voted overwhelmingly on Monday in favour of open-ended strike action.

Deutsche Bahn says it has rejected an ultimatum by the GDL union for the company to come up with a new pay offer by Tuesday night. The union wants a 31 per cent rise for its 13,000 members.

Chrysler Hires Poster Boy of Corporate Greed

2007-08-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

Chrysler's Hiring of Nardelli
Could Raise UAW Concerns
By JOHN D. STOLL
Wall Street Journal
August 6, 2007 9:02 a.m.

DETROIT -- Former Home Depot Inc. Chief Robert Nardelli couldn't have come to Detroit at a more fragile time, as the Big Three domestic auto makers are locked in critical labor negotiations with a United Auto Workers union that has made criticizing executive compensation a key rallying cry.

Mr. Nardelli, who recently made headlines with a $210 million Home Depot Inc. severance package, takes the Chrysler helm just days after private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management closed its purchase of Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler AG. Mr. Nardelli has recently become the poster boy for corporate excess thanks to the severance package that drew criticism from investors, lawmakers and unions.

That image promises to not sit well with Detroit's biggest union.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger was initially against a private-equity takeover, mostly because he believed the firms were full of people who used other people's money to "strip and flip" corporations. The union, however, surprisingly warmed up to Cerberus after being assured former Chrysler Chief Executive Tom LaSorda's so-called Recovery and Transformation Plan turnaround plan was still intact.

Now, harmony between the deep-pocketed investment firm and the 72-year-old labor union may face a challenge. Mr. Gettelfinger, in past interviews with the media, has said he supports Mr. LaSorda, whose family has deep union ties and who had been paying his own health-care tab in a show of shared sacrifice with the UAW. Mr. LaSorda, who will remain president, took over as Chrysler CEO in September 2005, and had a rocky tenure capped by Daimler AG's decision to sell Chrysler in May.

"I believe they made the right decision by keeping Tom LaSorda," Mr. Gettelfinger said in late May. "I think it's a bold move on their part to say we know very little about this industry and we have a management team in place that does."

While Mr. Gettelfinger has been an advocate of Mr. LaSorda remaining CEO, he has also been a fierce critic of excessively high executive compensation.

Most recently, the union chief took aim at Delphi Corp. Chairman Steve Miller after Delphi dished out multi-million-dollar retention packages to executives shortly after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2005. At the same time, Mr. Miller was threatening to use court protection to rip up labor contracts for hourly workers at Delphi, an auto parts maker that had been spun off from General Motors Corp. in 1999.

Even with Delphi nearly ready to emerge from bankruptcy, thanks in part to a new UAW contract, the tension created by Mr. Miller and the compensation issues still weigh on Mr. Gettelfinger. He refuses to even say the word "Delphi" in public statements, instead calling it "GM's parts operation." He refers to Delphi executives as "swine."

As colorful as the Delphi saga turned out to be, the stakes are arguably much higher as Chrysler, along with GM and Ford Motor Co., try to hammer out a new four-year contract that cedes considerable cost concessions to the auto makers. Mr. LaSorda will keep a close hand in the negotiations, but Mr. Nardelli's high-profile figure will undoubtedly loom over the talks.

In Mr. Nardelli, GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally have a new negotiating partner who has attracted scrutiny from other unions, notably the AFL-CIO. That union, which has teamed up with the UAW on the political front, made a punching bag of Mr. Nardelli during his tenure at Home Depot, generating several press releases criticizing his performance and compensation.

Mr. Nardelli's compensation as Chrysler chief executive will likely remain confidential, since the company is now private. Mr. Nardelli's pay will be tied to Chrysler's performance and based on the equity value of the auto maker, people familiar with the matter said. The new CEO will have breathing room to engineer a restructuring for the auto maker without the scrutiny of shareholders and Wall Street analysts.

The UAW already has executive compensation on its mind as it enters labor talks, and that could be a strike against Mr. Nardelli. In a book distributed to media in advance of the negotiations, the UAW noted "The CEOs of Chrysler Group, Ford and GM earned a combined total of $24.5 million in salaries, bonuses and other compensation in 2006." The union calls the payouts "substantial sums." Mr. Gettelfinger also took considerable time earlier this year to rip high executive compensation during the UAW's bargaining convention, which is a public event meant to lay the groundwork for private labor talks.

On July 23, Mr. Gettelfinger, at a press conference held at Ford headquarters, reminded media that chief executives of Japanese auto makers, which are wildly more profitable than the Big Three, typically make less money then U.S. auto chiefs.

UNITE HERE Launches Website, Survey, to Engage Countrywide Borrowers

2007-08-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The labor union UNITE
HERE has launched a website, http://www.eyeoncountrywide.info, as an open resource on the sub-prime lending crisis and the nation's number one sub-prime lender, Countrywide Financial Corporation.

Sarkozy Goes on Anti-Union Offensive

2007-08-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Sarkozy’s reforms too tame for some
By John Thornhill in Paris
Financial Times

Published: August 2 2007 18:52 | Last updated: August 2 2007 18:52

The French parliament concluded its extraordinary summer session on Thursday night having adopted four big packages of legislation in a frantic burst of political activity.

However, in spite of such remarkable activism, Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president, is facing criticism from some supporters that his government is not reforming as boldly as promised.

Boasting a clear parliamentary majority, Mr Sarkozy has found it easy to push through legislation cutting taxes on overtime and mortgage interest payments, granting more autonomy to universities, toughening sentences for repeat offenders and mandating minimum service levels on public transport during strikes.

The president has made clear he is pushing full speed ahead with his promise to bring about a “rupture” with the failed policies of the past and revitalise the eurozone’s second biggest economy.

Wishing his ministers a good vacation following the last cabinet meeting of the summer on Wednesday, he told them to keep their mobile phones switched on and to prepare for even more intense work on their return in September.

But some deputies from Mr Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party, who have already been grumbling about how many Socialist ministers have been included in his government, are now complaining he has not been aggressive enough in tackling France’s sprawling civil service and getting a grip on public finances.

Even though they faced little parliamentary opposition, ministers shied away from some of their more controversial proposals that could have provoked confrontation with the unions.

On Tuesday François Fillon, the prime minister, outlined measures to cut civil service numbers next year by not replacing 22,700 retiring staff and to trim the projected budget deficit from 2.4 per cent in 2007 to 2.3 per cent next year. However, Mr Fillon’s reforms fell well short of Mr Sarkozy’s campaign promises not to replace half those retiring from the civil service and to revolutionise the public finances.

Mr Fillon argued that reforms would acquire a momentum of their own, making it easier to move faster later to meet Mr Sarkozy’s promises over the course of his five-year term. The government’s tax cuts would also stimulate faster economic growth, which would enable the deficit to be cut more aggressively later.

Christine Lagarde, the finance minister, estimated that the €13.8bn (£9.3bn, $18.9bn) tax cuts approved by parliament this week could add at least 0.3 of a percentage point to economic growth in 2008. With the unemployment rate having fallen to 8 per cent, its lowest level in 25 years, the French economy would enter a virtuous cycle of higher growth, falling unemployment and shrinking deficits, ministers hope.

But in a biting editorial, the left-leaning Le Monde newspaper criticised Mr Sarkozy for not going further in his first three months in office. It said that Mr Fillon, who has seemed almost invisible at times in the Sarkozy administration, had finally found a role: announcing the government’s retreats on its most controversial measures.

“These evolutions show that the ‘hyper-president’ is not Superman: like his predecessors he must pull back on his campaign promises,” the newspaper said. “The man of action, elected on the slogan ‘I do what I say’ is already confronted with the limits of his power, even though the first months of a new mandate are the most favourable for passing important reforms.”

SEIU Criticizes Clinton for Lack of Health Care Plan

2007-08-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has undercut her standing with a politically powerful labor union with her go-slow approach on health care.

"We're disappointed in what she's released so far," Stephanie Mueller, the spokesperson for the powerful Service Employees International Union, told ABC News. While expressing disappointment that Clinton has not yet released a health care plan offering coverage for all Americans, Mueller was quick to add that when it comes to winning the union's coveted endorsement "no one has been disqualified at this point."

Nobu/De Niro Restaurants Take Cue from Snotty French Chefs: Wage Violations, ULPs

2007-08-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

De Niro's NY restaurant latest celeb venture sued
Thu Aug 2, 2007 11:43PM BST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two former waiters employed by a Manhattan restaurant chain partly owned by actor Robert De Niro sued it over wages on Thursday in the latest legal battle involving celebrity-owned New York establishments.

The lawsuit, which does not directly name De Niro, accuses Nobu, Nobu 57 and Nobu Next Door of failing to pay overtime and unfairly splitting tips.

It is among several recent lawsuits to accuse New York restaurants of wage violations and unfair labour practices.

New York restaurant staff are commonly paid tips instead of full wages. But many including immigrant busboys and food runners are underpaid and cut out of the larger tips, worker advocates say.

The suit filed in Manhattan federal court says that more than 100 waiters and busboys were cut out of their proper tips at the three Nobu establishments, and that the tip pool unfairly included managers and other usually untipped staff.

A spokeswoman for Nobu did not immediately return calls for comment.

Other lawsuits have accused celebrity French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten of not paying proper wages or dividing tips at his upscale New York restaurants, and hip-hop producer and rapper Jay-Z of paying incorrect wages at his Manhattan nightclub.

Another famous chef, Daniel Boulud, agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit this week after workers at his Manhattan restaurant Daniel accused the restaurant of promoting white French workers ahead of nonwhite workers.

In yet another case, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was recently sued by a New York restaurant manager who said he exaggerated the restaurant's conditions on his television reality show "Kitchen Nightmares."

UNITE-HERE members to Vote on Las Vegas Casino Strike Authorization

2007-08-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Culinary Workers Union Slates Las Vegas Strike Vote Sept 12

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Culinary Workers Union Local 226 members will vote on Sept. 12 to authorize the union's negotiating committee to call for strikes at Las Vegas casinos without new contract settlements.

The union has been in negotiations with MGM Mirage (MGM) in Las Vegas since March for new agreements covering more than 21,000 workers at nine of the company's Las Vegas Strip properties.

Earlier this month, the union began negotiations with other casino operators in Las Vegas covering an additional 14,000 workers.

As of July 31 only workers at seven of Harrah's Entertainment Inc.'s (HET) Las Vegas properties have settled new contracts covering 15,000 workers.

CTW Investment Group Calls on Vegan A-Hole to Resign

2007-08-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

Group Urges Whole Foods' Mackey
To Step Down as Firm's Chairman
By DAVID KESMODEL
July 26, 2007

Wall Street Journal

CHICAGO -- An investment group affiliated with union pension funds said John Mackey, the embattled chief executive of Whole Foods Market Inc., should step down as chairman of the natural-foods giant in the wake of revelations that he posted anonymous comments on Internet stock-market forums.

CtW Investment Group, a branch of Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, wrote a letter Wednesday to John B. Elstrott Jr., the lead independent director at Whole Foods, urging the board to immediately name an independent chairman "who can quickly establish credibility with regulatory authorities and shareholders."

Union pension funds affiliated with CtW own some 900,000 shares of Whole Foods, according to the letter. That's less than 1% of the Austin, Texas-based company's outstanding shares.

Whole Foods' board said last week it had formed a special committee to launch an internal investigation into Mr. Mackey's online statements. Over a roughly eight-year period, Mackey used a pseudonym, "Rahodeb," on Yahoo Finance message boards. He touted Whole Foods, derided his rivals and got into lengthy debates with other users.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an informal probe to determine if the comments violated the law.

The investment group said even if Mr. Mackey didn't violate the law or the company's code of conduct, his "poor judgment has already damaged his credibility" and jeopardized the company's proposed purchase of rival Wild Oats Markets Inc. "With Whole Foods under mounting legal and regulatory scrutiny, its share price down 37% in two years, and Mackey's leadership in question," the group wrote, "we do not believe the creation of a special committee alone is sufficient to restore investor and regulatory confidence in the company and its management."

Mr. Mackey's postings as Rahodeb surfaced as part of a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission aimed at blocking the $565 million acquisition of Wild Oats. The government contends the deal would reduce competition and raise prices for consumers.

For years, labor unions have been at odds with Mr. Mackey, who has opposed efforts to organize workers at Whole Foods stores and criticized the broader labor movement.

A Whole Foods spokeswoman declined to comment.

New Plan to Bore Capitalism to Death

2007-07-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Parecon and Anarcho-Syndicalism: An Interview with Michael Albert
Michael Albert interviewed by
DC Tedrow
ZNet

Participatory economics, or parecon for short, is a classless economic system that serves as an alternative to capitalism, market socialism, and centrally planned economies. Parecon is based upon equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self-management, as well as takes into account kinship/gender, community/race, and polity in addition to economic considerations. Under parecon, workers and consumers councils are responsible for self-managed decision making; workers have balanced job complexes; effort and sacrifice are rewarded, not hours worked or how much capital was invested; and planning is participatory.

Continued...

News from Filthy Trots

2007-07-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

Service Employees End California Nursing Home Partnership
Mark Brenner
Labor Notes

Following months of criticism and sharp internal debate, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ended its controversial partnership agreement with a group of California nursing homes on May 31. The four-and-a-half-year-old deal was a quid pro quo arrangement that brought over 3,000 workers into SEIU after the union secured higher state government payments to nursing homes that care for Medicaid patients. In addition to giving SEIU organizing access to a number of nursing homes, the agreement provided “template” contract language for these newly organized workplaces.

SEIU announced it was ending the partnership just days after the executive board of United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), one of the two SEIU locals that were party to the original deal, launched a campaign to steer the agreement in a different direction.

Continued...

Pies Fly at Social Forum

2007-07-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Communique on USSF Pieing by Agents aNGie O'tool and Cherry Karim

Pies fly when you are having fun-- and so do fliers. The text that accompanied the media coverage of the pieing was taken from the flier distributed on the scene. The following is the statement from the agents themselves.

People are talkin, talking 'bout people
I hear them whisper, you won't believe it
They think we're lovers kept under covers
I just ignore it, but they keep saying
We laugh just a little too loud
We stand just a little too close
We stare just a little too long
Maybe they're seeing, something we don't, Darlin'
--Bonnie Raitt, "Something to Talk About"

People were talking at the historic, very first United States Social Forum. Talking. Talking talking talking. We know, because we were listening. And talking, ourselves, too, sure. Talking. Listening. Not surprisingly, a major topic was the role of non-profits in the global movement for social justice. Officially, it was the theme of workshops and presentations. Unofficially, it was the continuation of an ongoing conversation that was recently revived by the Zapatistas' Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona. At least. Recently. I mean, people have been talking about that since, like, the 60's, right? So people were talking, right? Talking about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, right?

According to LIP MAGAZINE, the US non-profit sector is the seventh largest economy in the world. At a conference put on by INCITE! in 2004 called The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, "movement builders from within the [Non-Profit Sector] spoke of the paralysis, disempowerment and ineffectiveness of the nonprofit world." This year, 2007, a collection of essays was released by the same group under the same title. We invite this movement to pick up copies of that book and take a look in the mirror. Like Bonnie Raitt sings, "maybe they're seeing something we don't."

On Saturday, June 30th Medea Benjamin, self-appointed spokesperson for popular movements, received a tasty banana cream pie courtesy of the Bakers Without Borders, Co-optation Watch cell. The tactic of delivering our critique of just desserts was specifically chosen as a social critique from within our peoples’ movement which mobilizes a tradition of tricksters, clowns, jesters, pranksters and yippies to make serious commentary in a playful way. And while our actions were playful, the issues which motivated us were serious. So, in the spirit of Hopi clowns, court jesters, and buffoons of all ages, Bakers Without Borders offer this movement a mirror—at the bottom of a pie tin—for self-reflection. Are these funhouse mirrors the clowns hold up? Do we really take ourselves that seriously? Have our heads really swollen that big?

Continued...

Union - Palestinian Solidarity

2007-07-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Boycott and divestment movement spreads to Northern Ireland and USA

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Northern Ireland's biggest trade union, the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA), has yesterday unanimously passed five motions that call for solidarity for Palestinians in the face of the Israeli occupation.

The motions contained severe condemnation of Israel's illegal withholding of Palestinian tax revenues and the ongoing military assaults. Furthermore, the motions express outrage at the human rights abuses on Israel's part, such as the continued occupation and destruction of Palestinian lands and civilian infrastructure and the building of illegal Israeli settlements, as well as mass arrests, torture and extra-judicial killings.

Continued...

Beware teh Anarchy

2007-07-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

Local unrest followed cycle of social movements
The Register-Guard

It was the late 1990s, and the Eugene scene had a backdrop of activism, tension and violence.

Bottle-throwing throngs of drunken college students confronted police.

Tree sitters drew clouds of pepper spray as they tried to halt a downtown housing development.

Anarchists regularly flooded the streets - decrying consumerism, corporate greed, excessive police force and government in general. They drew more police gas, beanbag shotgun rounds and arrests by the scores.

Vandals roamed at night, breaking business windows, torching Dumpsters and spray painting the anarchist symbol - a circled A.

Amid the helter-skelter, a secretive cell of radicals took their activism to yet another level - large-scale arsons around the Northwest for the cause of animal rights and environmentalism.

The comparative quiet of the years since then may create an impression of that period as a chaotic era, a fluke disconnected from the norm.

Continued...

Fightin' Scabs in the Streets

2007-07-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Battle for high-rises in New York
Fight for work at building site
Hardhats face off in West Side rumble

BY PETER KADUSHIN and JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Saturday, June 30th 2007, 4:00 AM

A union member lies in the street, separated from his prosthetic leg yesterday, after a battle erupted between workers.

Construction workers squared off on a midtown street yesterday after a nonunion laborer backed a cement mixer into a crowd of protesting union workers, police and witnesses said.

Continued...

Elderly Anarchism

2007-06-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

A West Philly-based anarchist newspaper turns 10

The conversation on that van ride 10 years ago this month spawned The Defenestrator, a collectively run anarchist newspaper based in West Philadelphia that first published a few weeks later. In August the newspaper will celebrate its 10th anniversary—a major accomplishment for a community that’s constantly in flux and doesn’t believe in hierarchy.

Against Type

A West Philly-based anarchist newspaper turns 10.

by G.W. Miller III
Philadelphia Weekly

It was the halcyon days of the mid-’90s. The economy was fast approaching the dot-com boom, welfare reform was putting people to work, the country wasn’t at war and Monica Lewinsky wasn’t yet a household name.

With the exception of an escalating homicide rate, things were pretty quiet in Philadelphia in 1997.

A little too quiet.

On a long van ride back to Philadelphia from a Boston conference for activists fighting poverty and homelessness, a group of Philly anarchists decided, “We don’t fuck shit up nearly as much as we really ought to.”

The rhythm of everyday life had beaten the once-thriving Philly activist scene into submission. Demonstrations had been too tame, they said. Protests had been ill attended. They needed a spark to bring everyone together, to inspire action, to mobilize.

The conversation on that van ride 10 years ago this month spawned The Defenestrator, a collectively run anarchist newspaper based in West Philadelphia that first published a few weeks later. In August the newspaper will celebrate its 10th anniversary—a major accomplishment for a community that’s constantly in flux and doesn’t believe in hierarchy.

Continued...

Fuck the DNC

2007-06-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

Union rooms not in cards
DNC HOTEL SELECTION
By Chuck Plunkett

In a significant break with tradition, no state delegations will stay in a unionized hotel in Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the national party confirmed Wednesday.

Because there is just one unionized hotel in the city, Democratic National Convention Committee officials were concerned that states with high union representation would be clamoring for the 1,100-room Hyatt Regency Denver.

The Hyatt will be used during the Aug. 25-28, 2008, convention but will probably house national party officials and support staff. Nearly 7,000 state delegates are expected to attend the convention.

The arrangement disappoints many Democrats, whose rule of thumb is to seek out union hotels whenever they travel and who are accustomed to staying at union hotels during convention week. The last time Democratic conventioneers traveled to a city with little to no union representation was 1988, in Atlanta.

But several state party officials interviewed said they considered the accommodation plan a workable solution.

"There is one union hotel in all of Denver," said New York State Democratic Party chairwoman June O'Neill. "It's the reality."

Continued...

South African Strike Ends

2007-06-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Crippling four-week strike in South Africa ends

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South African public sector unions agreed a wage deal with the government on Thursday, ending a four-week strike that exposed sharp political divisions between the ruling ANC and its labor allies.

"The public service trade unions, after full consultation with their membership, have unanimously agreed to call off the strike action which began on 1 June, 2007," said a statement issued by the umbrella COSATU labor federation.

The decision eased pressure on the ANC leadership, which is holding a policy conference expected to provide hints on a bitter succession race ahead of a December congress that will choose a new party leader.

The protest saw some 600,000 teachers, nurses and other civil servants walk off the job on June 1 to push for a 12 percent pay hike in one of the largest industrial actions since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Angry union members marched through major cities in demonstrations of labour's power, while many schools closed due to teacher walkouts and public hospitals operated with skeleton staffing.

Unions accuse President Thabo Mbeki of abandoning the poor through his pro-business policies. South Africa's economy is booming but civil servants have complained their wages can barely keep up with rising prices.

Continued...

Zambian Union Mergers

2007-06-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

Zambia: Don't Downplay Union Mergers, FFTUZ Told
The Times of Zambia (Ndola)

THE Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has called on the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FFTUZ) not to downplay the importance of trade union mergers.

ZCTU secretary general, Sylvester Tembo, said in a statement in Kitwe yesterday that unions stood to lose if they opted to continue with the status quo.

"This is not the time for trade union leaders to take individualistic positions on serious issues at the expense of the interests of the general membership," Mr Tembo said in reaction to FFTUZ national executive secretary Lyson Mando's negative response to the ZCTU proposed merger.

Mr Mando on Monday described the ZCTU proposal contained in Mr Tembo's letter as not being serious saying it lacked details on how the merger was envisioned.

Mr Mando said the ZCTU had over the period of time been discussing the merger in the Press without putting plans on the table.

But Mr Tembo said Mr Mando's views lacked seriousness and bordered on triviality and should be dismissed with the contempt they deserved.

"ZCTU attaches great importance to issues of unity and solidarity hence our desire to initiate moves for a merger between our two federations. We did not expect to get such an immature response, which lacks credibility and seriousness from our colleagues.

Continued...

Copper Strike in Chile?

2007-06-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

Chile Collahuasi copper workers expect to vote strike

SANTIAGO, June 26 (Reuters) - Workers at the large Collahuasi copper mine in northern Chile expect to vote for a strike on Wednesday after management failed to present them with a better offer than the one they rejected a week ago.

"We have received no new offer, except for the one last Wednesday ... and the expectations are for workers to vote 100 percent to go on strike," Union President Hernan Farias told Reuters on Tuesday.

Continued...

Mobtown, Organizing and Precarity

2007-06-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

Temporary Injustice
Union Tries To Organize Temp Laborers At Camden Yards
By Chris Landers

The men and women began arriving at 2 p.m., and half an hour later there were around 30 of them, gathered in the shade by Camden Yards' Gate B. The crowds weren't scheduled to arrive for hours to watch the Washington Nationals hand the O's a 7-4 beat-down.

During a baseball game's nine innings, fans generate a lot of trash. The people at Gate B are there at the stadium to pick up after them.

Veronica Dorsey took the No. 3 bus from Northwood to get here. Phyllis Ockimey came down after her hospital job was finished. Last Saturday she was turned away because she was wearing her slippers from the hospital. Today she's worried about her nonregulation shorts, which she wore instead of pants, but it's hot out.

Continued...

P-CRAC Goes International

2007-06-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings Comrade-Enemies,

P-CRAC is most pleased to announce a "great leap forward" in the fight for liberation and pie-cardism!

In addition to our established chapters in Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago and New York City including revolutionary union hacks from SEIU, UNITE HERE and UFCW...

We gladly accept our first international chapter!

P-CRAC is now in London with the CWU.

Clearly this growing movement is catching on like a wildfire. We will not be stopped.

This is Class War!
This is P-CRAC!

Anarchists put the @ in N@ture!

2007-06-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Guerrilla Gardens
by Justin Valone
info [at] faultlines.org
Faultlines (San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center)

For those of us living in our modern cities land is a foreign concept. Stories of land conjure romantic images of countrysides far from our crowded neighborhoods, images that seem irrelevant to our lives. Even though we inhabit a landscape smothered with buildings and concrete, the struggles for land fought by rural people hold many important lessons for us as we strive for control over our lives and communities. When we consider the landless state of most poor people the world round and how most of us own no land, we realize we are all perpetually inhabiting someone else’s space. Our lives and communities as well as our food supply are controlled by people in far away places whose main motivation is profit. When we start to reclaim some of this space we begin to take back our lives.

Continued...

SEIU Healthcare Launch

2007-06-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Union creates health care arm
SEIU unit to oversee 38 locals across U.S.
By Hanah Cho
Sun reporter

The Service Employees International Union, hoping to better coordinate its resources, organizing strategies and direction nationally, has created a new health care union.

SEIU is expected to launch the health care arm of the larger organization tomorrow in Baltimore. Leaders and members will meet until Sunday to discuss the new union, which is designed to better unify about 1 million health care members - including nurses and service workers at hospitals and nursing homes. The parent union has a total of 1.8 million members.

Continued...

Interview with Dennis Rivera

2007-06-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Labor adapts to service economy
Boston Globe

Dennis Rivera, president of the New York-based 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, recently rose to the job of chief of all SEIU healthcare workers in the country. He spoke with Globe reporter Christopher Rowland about the union's efforts to organize workers at Boston's teaching hospitals.

Q Why are you having success organizing healthcare workers when other unions are having trouble increasing membership?

A The American economy right now is basically going to a service economy, and we are in areas where the economy is growing. By this time next year, we will have 2 million members in our union, and that will be a milestone -- 1.1 million to 1.2 million will be healthcare workers. There are about 10 million healthcare workers in the United States that could potentially be organized. We believe this year we are going to organize around 100,000, including, we hope, 22,500 personal care attendants here in Massachusetts.

Continued...

WSM on Turkey

2007-06-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Modernization, Authoritarianism and Political Islam
Red and Black Revolution #13
WSM

The following article is to appear soon in "Red & Black Revolution" no.13 (magazine of the WSM, Ireland). It examines the recent evolution of Turkish society, after the 1980 coup, and how it expresses in the current conflict between the military and the Islamist parties that is nothing but the conflict within sectors of the bourgeoisie for hegemony.

Almost ten years after the post-modern coup of 1997, in which the coalition government of Islamist Welfare Party (WP also known as Refah) and right-wing True Path Party (DYP) were forced to step down and later banned, another move by the powerful Turkish military came as a reminder of the role they keep in politics. Following the nomination of Abdullah Gül as president by Prime Minister Erdog(an in April, there was a parliamentary boycott organised by the secularist opposition of the White Turks, lead by the RPP (Republican People’s Party). Although there were past decisions supporting the case of the government, the Council of State favoured the opposition, but not before the military issued a warning on April 27th, resurrecting fears of military intervention and renewed repression that have plagued the last century of Turkish public life -signalling that the political might of the army is well and strong[1].

Two days later a massive demonstration as a part of a series of “Republic Meetings” was held in Istanbul. The concept was created by the pro-army Republic newspaper months before the presidential election and the participants came from secularist moderate or pro-army NGO’s. These urban secularist middle and upper classes were also denoted as White Turks. The demonstrators chanted against an Islamist government, but also, against military intervention. This added a new dimension to the crisis.

The current impasse with the army came to pose blatantly one of the paradoxes of Turkish life: that of secularism as being an authoritarian force, while political Islam is left to play the democratic cards[2]. But to understand the real nature of this apparent paradox it is important to dig a little bit into the history of Turkish society.

Continued...

West Coast Grocery Strike?

2007-06-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

UPDATE 3-California supermarket workers to vote on strikeBy Dana Ford
Reuters

LOS ANGELES, June 21 (Reuters) - Unions representing 65,000 workers at three Southern California supermarket chains asked members to authorize a strike after contract talks broke down on Thursday, raising the possibility of a repeat of 2003's crippling stoppage.

Union spokesman Mike Shimpock said members at Safeway Inc.'s (SWY.N: Quote, Profile , Research) Vons and Pavilions units and Kroger Co.'s (KR.N: Quote, Profile , Research) Ralphs chain, will begin voting on Sunday. Workers at Supervalu Inc.'s (SVU.N: Quote, Profile , Research) Albertsons stores authorized a strike in March.

"It authorizes the leadership and the negotiators to call a strike if and when they reach an impasse," Shimpock said in a conference call.

Continue...

Peasants Vs Lula!

2007-06-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Brazil’s Landless Workers Confront Lula
Isabella Kenfield
Canadian Dimension

Last week the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) held its fifth National Congress in Brasília, the country’s capital. The power the MST has garnered throughout its 23 years was palpable, as more than 17,500 delegates from 24 states and almost 200 international guests marched to the Square of the Three Powers, situated between the buildings of the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government. Marchers hung a huge banner in the square that read, “We accuse the three powers of impeding agrarian reform.”

In the minds of most MST members, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Workers’ Party (PT) have failed to implement the radical economic and social reforms that were promised, especially agrarian reform. According to José Maria Tardin, who was elected as the first PT mayor in the state of Paraná in 1989, and now works in the MST, “For the left, Lula is the biggest political tragedy in the history of Brazil.”

Continued...

An anti-capitalist call to organize against the SPP - the “NAFTA+”

2007-06-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Mexico, An anti-capitalist call to organize against the SPP - the “NAFTA+”
ASSEMBLY OF GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO ATTENDED THE JUNE 3, 2007 ANTICAPITALIST CONSULTA – MONTREAL

To the companer@s of: La Otra Campaña in Mexico, La Otra Campaña del Otro Lado and in Canada, Anarchist collectives in Mexico, Canada and the US To anyone who shares our rage and indignation, --- On August 21st, the three representatives of Mexico's, Canada's and the United States' transnational interests - the fascist figureheads Calderon, Harper and Bush - will meet in the Montebello Castle in Québec, Canada. Their objective is to follow up on and accelerate the implementation of the North-American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) – another criminal plan imposed on the peoples of our three countries, yet another antidemocratic initiative deepening the NAFTA, this time on energy and security issues. These illegitimate agreements have nothing to do with the interests of the people. They never had and never will.

Continued...

Precariats of the world, unite!

2007-06-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

'Precariat' workers are starting to fight for a little stability
By TOSHIHIKO UENO
Kyodo News

The new rallying cry of nonregular workers may become "Precariats of the world, unite!"

"Precariat" is a new Japanese word combining the English words "precarious," referring to the insecurity of part-time and contract work, and "proletariat."

Part-time workers dubbed "freeters" and nonregular contract employees, who together accounted for about a third of the overall workforce of some 51 million in 2006, are increasingly standing in open rebellion against the wide-spread claim in the "self-responsibility" debate that the youth of today prefer an unsettled life.

Continued...

On the Track of the Molly Maguires

2007-06-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

On the Track of the Molly Maguires
The Day of the Croaker*
By PETER LINEBAUGH
CounterPunch

On Black Thursday, June 21, 1877, in eastern Pennsylvania ten coal miners were hanged by the neck until they were dead. They were called Molly Maguires. They were born in Ireland coming over during the Famine, or their parents had, but one hesitates to call them Irish-American, since both terms of the copulative were being debated in relationship to these coal-miners, or Molly Maguires. Over the next two years ten more were hanged, making twenty all in all.

Six hanged at Pottsville (James Carroll, James Roarity, Hugh McGehan, James Boyle, Thomas Munley, Thomas Duffy) and four at Mauch Chunk (Edward Kelly, Michael Doyle, Alexander Campbell, John Donahue) where they all swung at once. In Pottsville the Sheriff hanged them successively two by two rather than build a special gallows. An immense crowd gathered covering the surrounding hills. Screams and sobbing as husbands and fathers were bid goodbye. Boyle carried a blood-red rose and McGehan two roses in his lapel. Carrol and Roarity declared their innocence from the scaffold. In co. Donegal McGehan's relatives met in the kitchen and, it was said, the sky blackened at the moment of hanging.

Continued...

Wayne "The Hammer" Price vs Bob "The Chairman" Avakian

2007-06-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

A Maoist Attack on Anarchism
An Anarchist Response to Bob Avakian, MLM vs. Anarchism
by Wayne Price

In the 60s and 70s, Maoism was a major current on the Left internationally. Today it is much shrunken in influence. To a great extent, its far-left niche has been taken by anarchism. I only know of one theoretical response to this situation, which is the pamphlet MLM [Marxism-Leninism-Maoism] vs. Anarchism, written by the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party (U.S.), Bob Avakian. (The pamphlet itself is undated; it is composed of articles which Avakian wrote for the Revolutionary Worker paper in 1997.) The RCP is the largest Maoist group still existing in the U.S. and has international associations. It has a cult around Avakian, who is not merely its Chairman. He is The LEADER, constantly referred to in their press as the man with all the answers, the genius who understands the world and who will lead the downtrodden into the promised land. While he does not speak for all those who consider themselves Maoists, it is worth looking at what he calls, “our fundamental answer to anarchism.”

Continued...

No "Jobs for Comrades"

2007-06-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Union Condemns 'Jobs for Comrades'
The Namibian (Windhoek)
By Christof Maletsky

THE slogan "jobs for comrades", which has even been echoed by some trade unionists, is to blame for the mess some parastatals find themselves in, the Public Service Union of Namibia (PSUN) claims.

The union's President, Awebahe Hoeseb, said liberation struggle credentials, and not corporate gumption and acumen, were the most crucial criteria considered in the appointment of many heads of parastatals.

"This ushered in a new era of nepotism and favouritism, because some Chief Executive Officers managed to get their friends and acquaintances appointed, without them necessarily having the qualities and skills to perform well.

Continued...

Nigerian General Strike

2007-06-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

Strike Begins as FG, Workers Talks Collapse
Daily Trust (Abuja)
By Abdullahi M. Gulloma, Abdul-Rahman Abubakar

Last ditch efforts by government to avert a nationwide strike by labour failed last night. The NLC, TUC and JAF after a meeting yesterday rebuffed government's offer that fell short of reversing increase in fuel price.

The workers made their decision known in a letter to government delivered through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Babagana Kingibe. The SGF took the letter to the villa and after a meeting with President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the government issued a statement declining to accede to labour's demand. The statement signed by Kingibe reads in part:

"The federal government notes with regret the decision by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and "JAF" that notwithstanding government's overtures of the last 48 hours, to declare an indefinite general strike and mass protest beginning Wednesday, 20 June, 2007 unless their four-point demands were addressed.

Any well meaning Nigerian in whose name labour purports to speak can see that the tone and content of this press statement (Labour's) clearly indicated a political, rather than an industrial agenda.

"Indeed, in the press statement, the labour leaders widened the scope of their demands to include elements which they never raised in the course of their engagement with government.

"In arriving at these decisions, government took into consideration the overall national interest and they are not, and should not be, misconstrued as a response to the agitation of any group or individuals.

"Government is aware of and sensitive to the plight of the Nigerian people and is resolved to address them squarely. Policy initiatives towards this end are being finalised. This resolve was underscored by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in his inaugural address on May 29 this year when he said: "Let us join together to ease the pains of today while working for the gains of tomorrow."

Continued...

The Specific Organisation

2007-06-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

The Specific Organisation
by Jaime Cubero - Centro de Cultura Social - São Paulo

The specific organisation of the anarchist movement is an instance of how it is implicit in the designation, with peculiarities that define basic principles, on whose practice its existence depends.

The revolutionary project extolling libertarian socialism demands an organisation in which it defines strategies and, similarly, alternatives for all instances, at the same time as its practice is an anticipated exercise of the project. Therefore, freedom, responsibility, ethics, federalism, solidarity, self-management, etc. do not only have to be concepts of a theoretical discourse, but that which defines the practice and behavior of anarchists in the organisation. Thus as the individuals are the cellular unit of the organisation, the groups and collectives are its basic nucleus.

The affinity groups are constituted by militants whose relationship, established on peculiar interests, is so much more intense in the measure in which it is nourished by revolutionary ideas and practices. Each group has a limited number of participants that guarantees a greater degree of intimacy between its members. They are autonomous, where its members can be reorganised both individual and socially. They function as catalysts of the movement providing initiative and conscietisation. The union or seperation of each group is determined by circumstance and interests, and not by any centralised decision. The adhesions or departures are made spontaneously and freely, without pressure of any nature. During periods of political repression the affinity groups are very resistant. Due to the high degree of cohesion that exists between the participants it becomes dificult to penetrate the group, and also under the most difficult conditions, the affinity groups manage to maintain contact. Nothing hinders the groups from working together at whatever level made necessary. They can join with local, regional and national groups, in a permanent or fortuitous form for the formulation of common plans. Each group looks to congregate the resources necessary to function with maximum autonomy.

Continued...

Boss News on Culinary - Harrah's Contract

2007-06-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

Tentative labour agreement: Harrah's, union sign deal
18 June 2007
by Howard Stutz
Las Vegas Gaming Wire

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- After a marathon negotiating session, Harrah's Entertainment early Friday became the first casino operator to reach a tentative accord on a new collective bargaining agreement with the state's largest labor union.

Terms and details of the new contract, which covers some 15,000 workers represented by Culinary Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165 at Harrah's Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, Bally's, Paris Las Vegas, Flamingo and the Rio, were not released by the union or Harrah's.

The tentative agreement was negotiated by representatives of Harrah's and a committee of rank-and-file members of the Culinary and Bartenders unions employed at the different Harrah's properties.

Harrah's employees will hear details of the contract proposal today during two separate meetings at Paris Las Vegas. A vote on ratifying the contract will take place after each meeting. Culinary officials said they expect to have results by early in the evening.

"The tentative agreement was overwhelmingly approved and recommended by our negotiating committee, which had several hundred members," Culinary spokeswoman Pilar Weiss said.

Contiuned...

Gettelfinger's a total cock

2007-06-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Union sees need for Chrysler cost concession

DETROIT, June 18 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said on Monday the union needs to find a way to grant health care cost-saving concessions to Chrysler Group (DCXGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) (DCX.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

"We are talking with Chrysler quite frequently," Gettelfinger said in an interview on WJR-AM radio in Detroit. "We do need to find a way to fix the problem there now that Chrysler is in a downward mode."

Chrysler executives had been seeking a concession from the UAW similar to the groundbreaking deals clinched with General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in 2005, under which UAW workers and retirees pay more for health care.

Continued...

RICH Zine and Individual wealth redistribution

2007-06-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

RICH Zine
by Tyrone
June 2007

P-CRAC Editor's note: Further discussion by a bunch of asses can be found here.

Hello.

I wrote this zine for a few reasons. When I was growing up, I knew my family had money but I didn’t really get the concept of “privilege.” Then I became an activist and started thinking about systems of power and oppression and how privilege played a role in them. I started thinking about my own privilege, mostly as a white person, and about how I could challenge the racist systems that gave me privilege while others were oppressed. Then I started thinking about class privilege, and about how I was raised with a lot of it, and about what that meant. Then I learned that I had a $400,000 trust fund and became incredibly self-conscious about it. Then I realized, mostly through the urging of smart friends and fellow activists, that it was useless (and counter-productive) to try to hide or otherwise not deal with my class privilege, and I started thinking about how I could take responsibility for it in ways that reflected my values as an activist.

I began talking to other people about class privilege, and about the ways that having it or not having it affects our lives. In 2005 I went to a conference called Making Money Make Change – a gathering of young people with class privilege to talk and strategize about “leveraging” privilege for social change. I left that first MMMC feeling both inspired and critical, but excited enough that I volunteered to join the organizing committee. Organizing MMMC served as my entry into the world “donor organizing,” and I started thinking a lot about how social justice work is funded, how funding can co-opt or damage movements, and how people with access to more financial resources than they need can use those resources to support radical movement work led by people in oppressed communities. Donor organizing can mean different things. It can mean moving wealthy people to give money to social justice organizing rather than traditional forms of philanthropy. It can mean working in established and informal networks of rich people to direct energy, resources, and influence to support the goals of movement work. To me, donor organizing especially means working with other class-privileged folks to challenge oppression, capitalism, and economic injustice.

When I volunteered to help organize MMMC for the second year in a row, I decided to simultaneously embark on a self-education project. I wanted to learn more about my own financial situation; the details of my trust fund and the history of where it came from. I wanted to learn more about how my family came to be wealthy (a new thing for my parents, who both grew up working-class). I wanted to learn about the political and economic processes that create wealth disparity and economic injustice. I wanted to learn about the landscape of “social change philanthropy” and of philanthropy in general – a world that was unfamiliar to me when I first arrived at MMMC, but which I soon learned is totally connected to both the existence of economic injustice and some attempts to remedy it. I wanted to develop strategies for leveraging privilege, and to connect my work with other class-privileged folks to my other activism and to a greater social justice movement. And I wanted to figure out how to give away my trust fund in a way that reflected my values and supported radical social movements.

So I read a ton of books. I talked to a million different people about movement building, privilege, activism, class, and every related topic. I had lots of conversations with my dad about his and my class history and financial resources, and about how we fit into a bigger picture. I looked at my trust documents and started learning about how the money was held, who controlled it, and how to give it away. I pushed myself to work hard on organizing MMMC and to challenge the aspects of it I was critical of. I got involved in more projects that pushed me to start conversations in my communities about money and class. I started trying to leverage my own privilege by raising funds for social justice organizing from people I know.

This is one of the results of that self-education project. It’s the product of my own perspective as a white queer person with inherited wealth. I made this zine because I wanted to challenge myself to articulate some of my thinking by writing it down. And I wanted to challenge other class-privileged folks to think about this stuff too, or think about it more, and to keep thinking about it and keep pushing ourselves to be more accountable, honest, and critical.

I also wrote this as a way to explain to friends and fellow activists outside of this donor-organizing/challenging-class-privilege/social-justice-funding world what the hell I’m doing; and to connect this work to other forms of organizing. The whole point of working in class-privileged communities to “leverage” privilege is to support a greater social justice movement. We need to be having these conversations in all the work we do, not just in insular circles of lefty rich people.

Every thought in this zine was developed and processed through conversations with genius people like Laura, Rogue, Anna Elspeth, Kriti, Sam, Holmes, Karen, Vanessa, Tanya, my dad (David), my mom (Annie), Jamie, Killer, Socket, Drew Christopher, and many others. I hope to continue to have as many amazing, inspiring, lengthy conversations in the future.

Please write to me and tell me what you think.

Tyrone
June 2007

Money Stories

“Storytelling often represents the most ideological moments; when we tell stories we tell them as if there was only one way of telling them, as the ‘of course’ way of understanding what is happening in the world. These are moments when we are ‘least aware that [we] are using a particular framework, and that if [we] used another framework the things we are talking about would have different meaning.’”

-Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists1

When I was growing up, I never thought of my family as rich. Even when I became involved in donor organizing work, I resisted identifying my background as owning class – I knew I had class privilege, but I thought of myself as “upper-middle class” for a long time. After doing some probing about my family’s wealth and doing plenty of reading about class in the U.S., I finally realized that this perception of my family’s class status had more to do with dominant ideology around wealth and my own resistance to identifying as “really” rich than with actual reality.

The more I’ve learned about wealth and class privilege, the more I see my incorrect interpretation of my own class status as symptomatic of a bigger problem. An important first step in taking responsibility for class privilege is to begin looking at our personal stories as part of a larger system. Or actually, multiple intersecting systems that work together; systems of institutionalized oppression like racism and patriarchy, the economic system of capitalism, and systems of ideology that keep all the other systems in place.

I’ve had anti-capitalist politics since before I became involved in donor organizing and began to look closely at my own class position. When I finally did start to examine my personal privilege, I began trying to figure out where I, as a person with inherited wealth, fit into my anti-capitalist analysis.

In the process of thinking about this, I called my dad to ask him some specific questions about our class status as a family and his interpretation of it. I’m trying to create an ongoing dialogue between my dad and I about class and privilege, and part of it focuses on learning more about how – as a first-generation owning-class individual (he grew up upwardly-mobile working class) – my dad came to accumulate wealth and power. He’s always had a very simplistic story about how he “made it”, basically centering on a combination of luck and hard work. He started a company around the time that I was born that produced some kind of software publishing product; the company ended up taking off and the stock value skyrocketed; hence, new owning-class status for my family.

I respect my dad a lot; he’s thoughtful and kind, and doesn’t at all fit stereotypes of greedy corporate CEOs. The point isn’t to dis my dad and call him out as being oppressive, but to look at our position as wealthy people within a greater structure of capitalism and oppression. If we don’t step back and challenge the broader framework that we’re situated in, it’s easy to play a complicit role in oppressive systems; that’s how privilege works. Sociologist Allan Johnson describes this at the “path of least resistance.” He writes: “Good people with good intentions make systems happen in ways that produce all kinds of injustice and suffering for people in culturally devalued and excluded groups…If we participate in systems the trouble [of oppression] comes out of, and if those systems exist only though our participation, than this is enough to involve us in the trouble itself.”2

My dad’s story of wealth accumulation – the way he tells it – is straightforward, honest, and true to his experience. It also could have been ripped verbatim from the pages of the Resource Generation book Classified (check out the bibliography in the back of this zine); specifically the chapter on money stories, which describes some of the myths and archetypes that go into creating ruling-class ideology. Karen Pittelman, the author of Classified, writes,

…the majority of the money stories begin to take on a strange similarity to each other. They focus on one person, often a man, and they center on how his hard work, intelligence, ingenuity, willingness to take risks and temerity lead to eventual financial good fortune. While the details of each story vary, the same plotlines – even the same phrases – occur again and again: “pulled himself up by the bootstraps,” “wise investor,” “rags to riches,” “worked day and night,” “never took a handout,” and “self-made man.”3

My dad’s story is a lot like this. It can be hard to talk about the oppression that is linked to wealth accumulation for him personally; because of course he doesn’t see himself as an oppressor. He’s a liberal. He sees his wealth as having been acquired basically in a vacuum, without negatively affecting others in any way. He spent his work life in offices and board meetings, not cracking the whip in a factory or overseeing the plantation. He isn’t making policy decisions and he doesn’t support the Bush administration. He isn’t an active participant in outsourcing jobs overseas, privatizing public services, breaking up unions, deregulating trade laws, exploiting immigrants, or most of the other obvious methods by which power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

But his ability to accumulate wealth was influenced by more than just his hard work and blind luck – although both of these played a part. As an entrepreneurial white man, he was well positioned to benefit from capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. He was able to make business connections, leverage influence, wield power in the worlds of business and technology, and be taken seriously to an extent that wouldn’t likely be available to a man of color or to any woman, thirty years ago or today.

In the book You Call This a Democracy?, Paul Kivel gives a good analysis of how wealthy people in the U.S. benefit from and support oppressive systems, even if we don’t directly make the decisions that create and enforce them. He draws a distinction between the owning class (which he defines as the wealthiest 20% of the population) and the “power elite” – a much smaller group within the owning class who are leaders in business, politics, philanthropy, and culture, and who are directly involved in high levels of society-shaping decision making. Though most rich people aren’t members of the power elite, we benefit in various ways from their decisions. Even if we have leftist politics and a scathing critique of neoliberalism, colonialism, global corporate takeover, militarism, and the rest of the U.S. power elite’s evil agenda; if we are in a position to benefit from the systems that support this agenda (like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy) we are implicated in it. It’s very easy for wealthy people to maintain an individualistic perspective on our lives when the realities of most people in the world are invisible to us. So we end up with stories like those that Classified describes – ideological narratives that keep the focus off the owning class and shield us from blame or responsibility for oppression.

It’s important to note the way these stories play out not just in our own lives as people with wealth, but in the greater society. As members of a dominant class, wealthy people hold systemic power – which allows us to frame everything from our perspective. This framing takes place not just on a personal level, but in all upper-class-controlled institutions (media, government, philanthropy, etc.). Classist ideology creeps into nearly all of the institutions that exert power over our lives. Reagan’s racist characterization of “welfare queens” created the climate for deeply harmful welfare “reform.” Invisibility of poor people (except as criminals) in media and popular culture erases the realities of the majority of U.S. citizens and encourages a blame-the-victim mentality that helps corporations and the government get away with deeply oppressive policies and practices. Philanthropic rhetoric that deems rich people to be the ones best equipped to fund social services allows for increasing erosion of the federal safety net. The myth that racism is over takes the responsibility off the government and private institutions (corporations, universities, foundations) to respond to the movement for reparations.

I think it’s crucial to draw connections between media storytelling and the stories we tell in our families; between the racism of politicians and legislators and the racism that those of us who are white learned in our homes growing up; between the paternalism of philanthropy and the privilege that we as individuals unconsciously enact; between the oppression by obvious perpetrators like police, military, and sweatshop-owning, union-busting multinational corporations and the oppression underlying our personal family fortunes.

Anti-capitalist social justice movements continually inspire me to challenge myself as a rich person and to challenge other rich people, because they situate us as players in systems that deeply harm the majority of people on the planet. It’s crucial to me to incorporate a radical critique of capitalism into both my understanding of my own wealth and privilege and into the donor organizing work I do. The “progressive philanthropy” world tends to take a stance that resists truly challenging capitalism and oppression in order to accommodate more moderate wealthy donors. Much of the landscape of social change philanthropy seems designed to make rich people feel better about ourselves and to channel some funds to progressive (or even radical) organizing without actually challenging the roots of inequality.

You don’t have to look hard to find a clear explanation of how capitalism is inextricably linked to multiple oppressions; racism, though (for example) slavery, imperialist acquisition of land and raw materials, and dividing white and POC workers to keep them from organizing; sexism, though exploiting the labor of women (who are already culturally devalued) and relying on women’s unpaid and unrecognized labor; ableism, through laws allowing companies to hire people with disabilities at less than minimum wages; and so on.

We should talk about these things when we talk about having class privilege, because as the beneficiaries of capitalism we are implicated whether we like it or not. For white folks with class privilege, the history that gets erased when we tell our simplistic “pulled-himself-up-by-his-bootstraps” money stories is the (continuing) history of explicit and institutionalized racism in the U.S. Some of us can trace our inherited wealth to slavery or other systems in which white people directly profited off of the stolen labor or land of people of color. Even for those of us with “new” money, previous generations of our families are more than likely to have benefited from racist policies and institutions that helped white people and discriminated against people of color (Homestead Act, G.I. Bill, land grants, New Deal, loans, jobs, contracts, unions…). Throughout U.S. history, people of color have been explicitly prohibited by racist government policy from building assets; and since the most important indicator of wealth is how much money your parents had, cultural myths about a “level playing field” start to look pretty empty.

For class-privileged people to be allies in social justice movements, we have to take responsibility for the bigger picture behind our own wealth. Our personal decisions about money and the stories we tell (to ourselves and others) have reflections and repercussions connected to our place in the larger class system; challenging these decisions and narratives, and challenging ourselves to look deeper, is a good way to start shifting our participation in oppressive systems.

Accountability and our Feelings

“I feel really scared when a working-class person challenges me, but I feel fine if another wealthy person does.”

-Donor at the Haymarket People’s Fund4

Working on organizing Making Money Make Change has made me think a lot about what it means to do donor organizing work accountably, and how emotions that wealthy people have around money and privilege play a role in preventing us from being accountable. “Accountability” is kind of a cliché and overused word, but I think it’s a crucial concept in any situation in which privileged people are doing social justice work. Without accountability to a larger movement and to people who experience the forms of oppression that our privilege shields us from, we aren’t really challenging systems of inequality.

There’s lots of history in social justice organizing of women, people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, disabled people, and other communities directly targeted by injustice challenging fellow activists to confront internal oppression within our movements. Activists with various forms of privilege – even if we have the best intentions – have a marked tendency to overlook the impact of institutionalized oppression in our own lives and in our organizing. Although it’s our responsibility to challenge oppression in our own communities, our work is not accountable to anyone if it is always done behind closed doors.

When I first came to MMMC, I was struck by language in the program about “safe space.” In the context of the retreat, “safe space” was being used to describe space where wealthy people could come together with other wealthy people to talk about the experience of having wealth. It was also used, directly and indirectly, to justify a policy in which non-wealthy activists who were invited to MMMC to lead workshops were asked to stay at the retreat only for their workshop and not to participate in any other programming.5

The “safe space” language was clearly meant as an attempt to alleviate the fear that comes up for MMMC’s attendees (many of whom have never before talked publicly about having wealth) when sharing openly about experiences of privilege. The quote at the beginning of this section echoes the sentiments of many MMMC participants, and describes a feeling that is common for people confronting personal privilege.

While I agree that it’s important – in fact, crucial – for privileged people to have the space to do the deep emotional work that comes with challenging our own privilege, the concept of “safety” in this context has a lot of problematic implications. Previous to MMMC, I had generally thought of “safe space” as a way for people who directly deal with a specific type of oppression to create a temporary space in which that form of oppression would be alleviated as much as possible (i.e. space for queer people, space for survivors, space for people of color, etc.). I think it’s also possible to conceptualize “safe space” as an intentional space where everyone present has consensed on a specific set of agreements around respect, listening, confidentiality, etc. But the implication underlying the “safe space” at MMMC was that the retreat was a space in which rich people could talk about the specific experience of having class privilege without the fear of being heard or challenged by people with whom that privilege was not shared.

I think it’s a misuse of the concept of safety to use the term “safe space” to describe a space that is exclusive to people with privilege, no matter what the purpose. We live in an unjust society that creates innumerable circumstances in which safety (in various forms) is available to privileged people at the expense of people who are oppressed. Using “safety” to justify or describe spaces that exclude people who lack a certain type of privilege not only implies that people who aren’t as privileged as we are somehow make us “unsafe,” it ignores the reality of power dynamics and the meaning of safety in the general world. As members of a dominant class, we feel “safe” within oppressive structures. Institutionalized oppression is designed to make us feel safe.

So then, what do we do with the intense emotions that arise when we talk about our own privilege? We certainly have a right to our feelings; and when we take steps to understand the roles we play in institutionalized oppression and begin to confront our own internalized supremacy, the level of emotion is bound to be high. Also, the experience of growing up with wealth and privilege can come with a whole host of connected issues related to family, self-worth, intimacy, community, and so on. This stuff is deep, and it is inevitable that when we delve into it we encounter anger, tears, frustration, and other forms of intense emotion.

But I think it is both possible and necessary to work through our feelings in a way that is intentionally anti-oppressive. Our feelings are contextual – they don’t arise in a vacuum, and we don’t express them in a vacuum. If, for example, we experience fear, shame, or anger as a response to being challenged (personally or politically) by folks who aren’t wealthy, we can respond to that by both acknowledging the validity of our emotions, and interrogating the emotions for the hidden meaning behind them; how they might be connected to classism, how they might scare us out of challenging our privilege.

There is a role for having caucus spaces around privilege, but not because we are afraid of being open with or confronted by people who don’t share our privileged experiences. It’s important for wealthy people (white people, men, or whoever) to support and challenge each other to fight oppression, to dive into the emotion and pathos specific to the experience of having class privilege, and to do some general working-out of our shit. Non-wealthy people don’t always have to be present for this – in fact they may prefer not to be.

But if we are attempting to truly leverage our privilege to support social justice (the ostensible goal of MMMC), wealthy people can’t remain the only participants in the conversation. When we create exclusive caucus spaces, we should be thinking about how to also create spaces for broader community conversation. When we give ourselves the space to cry/vent/rant about our privilege among a group of similarly privileged people, we should also be challenging ourselves to move towards increasing transparency in our personal lives and communities about our lives and our class backgrounds.

I think there’s a tendency to over-focus on the personal when talking about privilege. It’s easy to get sucked into dissecting our own privilege and the way that it affects all our life experiences, but doing this work is minimally useful if we don’t bring it into more public, institutional arenas. If the goal of the work becomes personal growth, we risk losing the broader analysis – and with it, the possibility for working within and outside of our privileged communities to challenge the roots of oppression. In an essay called “The Filth on Philanthropy: Progressive Philanthropy’s Agenda to Misdirect Social Justice Movements”, writers Tiffany Lethabo King and Ewuare Osayande describe Women With Money (WWM), a support group in Philadelphia for women with financial wealth:

According to their website, WWM “creates a welcoming, stimulating environment where women who have wealth, whether earned or inherited, can gain new perspectives on their lives and their money.” The group also provides “a place to explore issues of wealth with safety and confidentiality.” A wealthy person talking confidentially with other wealthy people about her money does not put her in a position of accountability to people who are not wealthy. Rather, it simply makes them comfortable about having more money than they know what to do with. Some of the issues explored by WWM include guilt management, accountability, personal relationships [and] political giving…The primary function seems to be to help (by and large, white) women deal with the guilt of having money and how to manage it (not give it up). Although they claim to discuss accountability, the question that begs to be asked is: accountability to whom? Nowhere on the site is there any acknowledgement or articulated participation of people of color or the poor. Within this controlled set-up, accountability exists only between white people with money and the white Left social justice groups that want access to it. This further substantiates our claim that by not openly demanding wealth redistribution, reparations, or justice for exploited workers, white social justice non-profits function as brokers for the wealthy. They simply help them manage their money and assuage their guilt for having wealth accrued from the stolen and exploited labor of people of color. 6

I want to acknowledge that dealing with/challenging privilege is nuanced and complex; but I also want to talk about how exclusive spaces created so that we can feel comfortable as wealthy people don’t push us in the direction of accountability. I think it’s important that we don’t feel comfortable – discomfort is the inevitable result of challenging class power and money taboos and the lies we are told (and tell) about wealth and the economy.

Philanthropy vs. Wealth Redistribution

“These rich young people do not give their wealth away; it is not redistributed. They give away their income and keep their capital. And, as embarrassed as it might make them feel, they symbolically carry this capital – and privilege – with them in all their endeavors. As donors they do not fully relinquish their power, although they try to share it. Sometimes they resent the fact that they are not more appreciated, that their opinions are sometimes discounted. It is difficult for them to escape the attitude of noblesse oblige with which they have grown up.”

-Teresa Odendahl, Charity Begins at Home7

That quote comes from a book about the practices, motivation, and ideology of elite philanthropy; specifically, it is from a chapter about “alternative” or “social change” philanthropy. Although social change philanthropy seeks to change the power dynamics endemic to traditional philanthropy, Teresa Odendahl’s observations point out the importance of continuing to challenge philanthropy in all its forms.

The practice that we in the U.S. refer to as philanthropy is almost always a tool for the ruling class to maintain itself. Foundations, the most common vehicle of philanthropy, were created by the wealthy elite as a way to shield their fortunes from taxation. The great majority of philanthropic giving goes to elitist institutions that largely serve and benefit the rich – private universities, ballet, opera, museums, etc. Even when philanthropic money goes to institutions that serve marginalized communities, it is within a paternalistic framework of “charity” – providing basic services without challenging the roots of inequality.

There are lots of great books critically analyzing traditional philanthropy – some of them are listed in the back of this zine. But most people in the leftist donor movement are already critical of traditional philanthropy – that’s why we’re creating new forms of giving that challenge injustice and support grassroots community organizing.

But the more I learn about/observe/participate in the world of social change philanthropy, the more I feel really dissatisfied with where we’re at. I’ve been thinking about how social change philanthropy is subject to many of the same oppressive symptoms as traditional philanthropy. Ostensibly, an aim of social change philanthropy is to redistribute not only money, but also the decision-making power that determines how the money is used. But I think that as progressive donors, we often fall short of redistributing both money and power.

A simple question that I think is important to ask in trying to understand all of this is: Why do we give? The history of philanthropy in the U.S. is a history of wealthy, ruling class people using various forms of monetary giving to maintain and hoard power, class status, and wealth. The culture of traditional philanthropy provides its own motivations for giving – membership in elite networks; influence over politics, media, and culture; participation in upper-class institutions; and so on. Since our goal as progressive donors is to challenge this dynamic, I think it’s useful to take a close look at what inspires and motivates us to give.

The concept of “incentive” comes up a lot in fundraising and philanthropy. Incentive to give money takes many forms in different situations, from tax deductions to public recognition to a feeling of satisfaction and self-worth. But I think that often, “incentive” can be translated to mean “power and control.” In Charity Begins at Home, a businessman with inherited wealth told the author: “Entrepreneurs have a great need to control. If you give them a controlling reason to give philanthropic money, you have all of the sudden got a philanthropist that might not otherwise be there.”8

Shifting Power

Philanthropy is such a horrifying institution that I feel dubious about attempts to reform it into something that is capable of supporting radical social movements. At the same time, we live in a capitalist society in which foundations play an increasingly influential role. Wealthy people, depending on our situations, have varying levels of involvement and influence in the world of philanthropy. For wealthy people with radical politics, it’s important to have a critique of these institutions whether we choose to work within them or not. It’s been useful to me to learn more about philanthropy (both “traditional” and “alternative”), because it helps me to understand the forces at play in any work that wealthy people do to “leverage” privilege for social change.

There are lots of (well, at least a few) community-based foundations throughout the country with the goal of funding social justice organizing. One thing that’s been really interesting for me to learn about is the different ways that these foundations distribute money; i.e., how they set up their grantmaking boards. I think looking at these grantmaking boards gets at the roots of some of my questions about how the ways that we give money can support or challenge class power dynamics.

The simplest model of shifting power within these types of foundations is to place grantmaking decisions in the hands of a board made up of activists and community organizers, with the majority coming from the communities that are most affected by oppression and inequality (people of color, women, queers, poor and working-class people, etc.). The idea is that these are the folks best equipped to disperse funds to social justice organizing – not only are they affected by issues of injustice in a more direct way than elite funders, but they’re experienced activists with expertise and grounding in grantee communities.

That’s a simplistic explanation, and of course there are a million ways that things get complicated. But what’s been interesting to me in learning about these types of foundations is how rarely that model is actually implemented. More often some compromise is struck that allows for greater donor control: the grantmaking board is made up of a combination of donors and activists; or there are two grantmaking boards – one for activists and one for donors, dividing up the funds and making grants independently; or the board is made up only of donors, with an expressed commitment to fund social justice work.9

I think looking at these different types of funding boards sheds some light on how deeply we don’t want to give up power. Community foundations that strictly limit donor involvement in funding decisions have a much harder time attracting wealthy contributors. And within the broader world of social justice philanthropy, activist-led re-granting institutions are just a small part of the way that wealthy people give money. Instead, we’re starting our own foundations, participating in elite donor networks with other lefty rich people, creating our own projects or nonprofits, or just giving directly to organizations doing work that we find interesting.

What are the costs when rich people are the ones making the decisions about how to fund social movements? At its most insidious, this funding dynamic can take the form of elite individuals and foundations using money as a way of manipulating movements and steering them away from forms of organizing that pose a true threat to elite power. This dynamic is elaborated on in many of the phenomenal essays in the book The Revolution Will Not be Funded, listed in the bibliography. A good example is the way that the Ford Foundation used funding to exert its influence in the Black power movement, supporting a focus of Black capitalism over Black liberation and directing movement energy away from radical organizing.10

Of course, as individual progressive donors, we don’t always set out to harm, co-opt, control, or de-radicalize movements – but unless we consciously and intentionally try not to, we may end up enacting these dynamics anyway. It’s a function of the way privilege works that systemic oppression usually manifests not through conspiracy, but as a natural reproduction of power and privilege.

Here’s an example: in the early years of the San Francisco-based Vanguard Foundation, grantmaking was done by two boards, one made up of (wealthy, white) donors and one made up of members drawn from the (activist, mostly people of color) “community”. Both had access to equal amounts of money, and would make grants separately. In a quote I found in Teresa Odendahl’s book Charity Begins at Home, a Vanguard donor board member explains:

The donor board would fund certain kinds of issues that perhaps were mainly organizations of white people – maybe more middle-class white people – doing certain, what we would consider essential work. The community board would sometimes fund the project of a community that might not be the most incisive, but nonetheless the community had been underrepresented in our funding.

A glaring problem in this statement – and one that I think is representative of a way larger problem – is the assumption by the donor board that the organizations doing the most “incisive” work are white middle-class organizations. Later, Odendahl indicates further what seems to be a prevailing belief of the wealthy donors – that the community board funded projects because of a desire to “see that the constituencies they represented were funded,” while donors, free from the obligation to fulfill such quotas, possessed a purer motivation to simply reflect “their politics and their sense of which groups were effective.”11 Somehow, the groups they deemed most “effective” strongly tended to be white and middle-class.

Taking Responsibility

In yet another totally awesome and useful book – Money for Change: Social Movement Philanthropy at Haymarket People’s Fund – author Susan Ostrander writes about internal processes at Haymarket, a community foundation whose grantmaking model (at least at the time this book was published) was especially strict in terms of not allowing participation of it’s wealthy donors on the grantmaking board. One of the ways that Haymarket raised money, despite its limitations on donor control, was by holding “wealth conferences” for progressive rich people.

It was kind of fascinating for me to read about these conferences, because a lot of the dynamics that came up within them were so similar to issues that I think about around MMMC. Haymarket’s wealth conferences served as a major fundraising tool, even though there was an explicit policy disallowing direct solicitation of participants. MMMC has a similar non-solicitation policy, but also succeeds (to varying degrees) in moving its wealthy attendees to give money. I think that the success of these types of “passive fundraising” brings up some important questions about why we give (i.e., what is our incentive), and what we ask in return.

Susan Ostrander describes the Haymarket conferences as spaces that focused heavily on personal growth work and relationship-building. Haymarket staff played a role in the conferences, but not to champion Haymarket or to necessarily present a case for its model of grantmaking. In fact, Ostrander indicates at one point that many of the conference participants didn’t even really know exactly what Haymarket was, even though they may have been Haymarket donors.

Although Haymarket staff might directly solicit participants at some point after the conference, during the conference their role was to hold a space for the personal development of wealthy conference attendees – and to build relationships with folks who might later become major donors to Haymarket. This required staff to do a lot of emotional labor and sociability work; Ostrander writes: “Building and maintaining these relations seemed time consuming, sometimes rewarding, and sometimes emotionally draining. A large portion of the work seemed to consist of informal ‘schmoozing’ and caretaking and what looked like, but really wasn’t, relaxed ‘hanging out.’”12

It seems a little disingenuous to attempt to build authentic cross-class relationships when funding is directly at stake. But there are tons of models in social change philanthropy that have community activists and wealthy donors working together, either to directly make funding decisions or to build a progressive donor community that will presumably eventually lead to increased funding for social change organizations; cross-class donor circles, grantmaking boards within community foundations, the Haymarket wealth conferences of yore (i.e. the 90s) and MMMC, their contemporary counterpart. While it’s safe to say that these models are a major improvement on traditional philanthropy, I think it’s important to think about how power is exercised, outwardly or covertly, in these situations in ways that mimic and enforce dominant power structures. For wealthy people, I think it is our responsibility to interrogate our role in these dynamics, and think about the ways that we resist redistributing power and resist removing the (obvious or subtle) strings attached to our money.

There’s a great article by Ira Silver called “Buying an Activist Identity” that further elaborates on the dynamic I’m getting at, although in a different context. In the article, Silver describes the grantmaking board at the Chicago-based Crossroads Fund, whose model has community activists and wealthy donors making funding decisions together. The logic behind this has to do with integrating donors more deeply into social movement work by putting them in working relationships with community organizers, which seems like a worthy goal; but the article is about the ways that relationships between the donors and the activists on the board end up reproducing class power dynamics.

A vastly oversimplified nutshell version of Ira Silver’s findings: a) wealthy donors care about social movements, want to identify as activists, and want to be down. b) They look to the community organizers on the board to validate their activist identities and assure them that they are down. c) Community organizers are committed to moving money and don’t want to alienate donors who are a major source of funding. They therefore yield to the unspoken pressure to reassure the donors that they are, in fact, down. d) Donors, secure in the belief that their participation on the grantmaking board is sufficient evidence that they are down, continue about their business as rich people reassured that there is no need for them to deeply challenge their class position or greater economic inequality. Ira Silver sums it up better: “[In] order to ensure that they get their small piece of the pie, community organizers willfully legitimate the class hierarchy that creates the very need for philanthropy in the first place.” 13

So to relate this discussion back to the question about why we give, and what we get in return: We get to feel like we are down. We get to feel less guilty about having wealth. We get to feel like we are good. We get to feel like giving some money gets us off the hook of really challenging our position of power and privilege in society.

This is the tension that I feel so often in donor organizing; we want donors to feel good so that they continue to be donors, but really challenging power doesn’t feel good. It’s been coming up in the context of MMMC, where the goals of the retreat are somewhat in dispute: is our aim to simply move money to social justice organizing, even if in doing so we risk perpetuating oppressive class power dynamics? Or is the goal for us to do real anti-oppression work that asks us to examine and challenge our privilege in a deeper way – even if we risk losing some people who aren’t interested in doing this deeper work but might otherwise have given money?

Letting Go

Obviously, I have a biased position; as a class-privileged person, I want to challenge my fellow class-privileged people to confront our privilege and support social justice movements however we can. I’m not a fundraiser at an organization that relies on the contributions of wealthy donors – if I were I might have a different perspective. But since I have the luxury of reflecting on idyllic scenarios in which wealthy people step up and use our privilege to challenge capitalism and the ruling class (and since I’m trying to figure out how to do that myself), I spend a lot of time thinking about what that would look like.

The donors described in Money for Change talked about a tension that they referred to as “living the contradiction;” meaning, being rich and also being committed to social change. This is an important tension to talk about, but it kind of glosses over the fact that having exorbitant wealth is usually voluntary.14 Divesting oneself of class privilege is often impossible depending on the circumstances – if you grew up with money like I did, it’s sure to have affected every aspect of your life, and it’s impossible to give away experiences gained by the privilege of having wealth. But often we have a choice about whether or not to hold on to our actual money.

I’d like to talk more about what it really means to “align our resources with our values” as wealthy people when our values are about economic justice. What does it mean to talk about wealth redistribution if we aren’t taking the steps to equitably redistribute our own wealth? How do we justify making the conscious choice to stay rich when that position puts us in the role of wielding influence and class power whether we intend to or not? Are we really challenging inequality and class supremacy when we continue to inhabit the role of “funders?” What does it mean to never give away our principal, or only give a little of it? What does it mean to pass that wealth down to our children?

The thing about class privilege is that it skews your perspective. My dad is always trying to convince me that our family isn’t as wealthy as I think we are, and that if I met some of the people he knows who are really rich, I would see how modest our lifestyle has been in comparison. Class privilege often means we don’t see the bigger picture – that we compare ourselves to the miniscule portion of the population who are even richer than we are, instead of to the vast majority of people on the planet who are prevented by oppressive systems (racism, capitalism, colonialism…) from being able to meet even their basic needs. This takes the pressure off of us to really examine our place in these systems as people with (often multiple forms of) privilege.

Ultimately, wealth redistribution won’t happen by rich people suddenly deciding to voluntarily give away all our money. An important way to leverage privilege is to use the power bestowed on us by our class position to advocate for involuntary wealth redistribution, and to support anti-poverty organizing and organizing that challenges the systemic oppression that creates wealth inequality.

But meanwhile let’s talk about what we can do, as individual wealthy folks who care about in social justice, to model the values we believe in. Capitalism means that anyone who has inordinate wealth has it at the expense of people who are poor. Holding on to more money than we need puts us in a position of wielding power in unjust ways. Let’s keep doing the deep, hard personal work of processing how wealth has affected our lives, let’s keep leveraging our influence in the world of philanthropy; but let’s do it with an acknowledgement that in a just world, no individual would be in the position of controlling exorbitant wealth.

The End…

Thinking about this stuff so much has left me with a lot more questions than answers. I want to keep figuring out how to work with other class-privileged people to not only move money, but to also challenge the systems that create wealth inequality in the first place. I want to find more ways of giving that shift funding decisions into the hands of a community rather than keep the decisions in the hands of individual wealthy donors. I want to continually challenge myself to leverage my own privilege in donor networks and funding institutions while also challenging the power and dominance of foundations and the 501(c)3. I want to be part of a critical dialogue about money, about need vs. luxury, and about security vs. hoarding. I want to keep these conversations going and resist the temptation to settle into privilege without challenging it. I want to push myself to go further, go deeper, and do the work I need to do to be an effective activist and organizer. I want us to push each other.

Tyrone

Bibliography

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution Will Not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, South End Press, 2007: This book should be required reading for anyone involved in funding, anyone involved in social justice organizing, and anyone, ever.

Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsey Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson, with United for a Fair Economy, The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide, The New Press, 2006: Incredibly useful for understanding connections between racism and economic injustice. The five different authors give examples (backed up with lots of facts, history, citations, and analysis) of ways that institutionalized racism and (especially) explicitly racist government policy prevented and continue to prevent people of color from accumulating wealth and assets while helping and supporting wealth-building for white people.

Karen Pittelman and Resource Generation, Illustrated by Molly Hein, Classified: How To Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use it For Social Change, Soft Skull Press, 2005: Funny, incisive, and good. And the illustrations rule.

bell hooks, Where We Stand: Class Matters, Routledge, 2000: bell hooks being brilliant about class. Also has a few chapters that specifically address wealth and challenge wealthy people to be more transparent/generous/honest/conscious.

Tiny, a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia, Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, City Lights, 2006: Tiny is a founder of POOR magazine, a media project in the bay area dedicated to advancing the voices of poor and otherwise marginalized people. This memoir is about how Tiny and her mother Dee came to be homeless and poor, the experiences they had trying to become not homeless and poor (using extremely creative and artistic means), and a great and accessible critique of how the system is set up to keep people homeless and poor.

Linda Stout, Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing, Beacon Press, 1999: Linda Stout founded the Piedmont Peace Project, a community organization, led by poor and working-class people, with a really awesome class analysis. She writes about how social movements have failed to create real, large-scale change in this country because they have failed to unify folks from different class backgrounds. She describes ways that middle- and upper- class people consciously and unconsciously exclude, silence and oppress lower-income people within social movement organizing.

Paul Kivel, You Call This a Democracy? Who Benefits, Who Pays, and Who Really Decides, Apex Press, 2004: Doesn’t beat around the bush in calling out the ruling class. Also lots of useful diagrams.

Anne Slepian & Christopher Mogil, with Peter Woodrow, We Gave Away a Fortune: Stories of People Who Have Devoted Themselves and Their Wealth to Peace, Justice, and a Healthy Environment, New Society Publishers, 1992: Good book profiling wealthy people who gave away lots of money, plus analysis about economics, privilege, guilt, and other important things for rich people to think about. The folks in this book go way further in their giving than most people in philanthropy; but I think the book also illustrates how much further we have to go.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006: A really good book about the subtle, insidious racism typical of the post Civil Rights era, and the rhetoric and ideology that holds it up. Helpful in thinking about the ways that privilege can make our own racism (or, by extension, classism, sexism, etc.) invisible to us. Bonilla-Silva interviews a bunch of mostly white people about race, transcribes portions of the interviews verbatim (with the verbal tics and rhetorical incoherence of casual speech intact), and then rips them apart using critical analysis.

Susan Ostrander, Money for Change: Social Movement Philanthropy at Haymarket People’s Fund, Temple University Press, 1995: If you are obsessively researching social change philanthropy like me (and maybe even if you aren’t), you might find this book incredibly interesting.

Ira Silver, “Buying an Activist Identity: Reproducing Class Through Social Movement Philanthropy,” Sociological Perspectives, 1998: If you don’t have access to those article databases that only students and academic types are allowed to use, feel free to email me and I’ll send you a copy of this.

Teresa Odendahl, Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest Among the Philanthropic Elite, Basic Books, 1990: Another book in the genre of “sociologist studies rich people in philanthropy.” Reading this made me hate philanthropy, but in the best way.

Allan G. Johnson, Privilege, Power, and Difference, McGraw-Hill, 2006: A very clear, simple, concise explanation of the ways privilege and power function. Especially useful for conversations with your family.

Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of Hope, Continuum, 2006: Paulo Freire was a class-privileged educator and theorist who used radical education to challenge oppression. This book, published 20 years after his seminal Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is kind of a reflection on his life and work. He has lots of interesting things to say about privilege, class, and liberation if you can handle the dense, rambling theory.

Web Resources

www.resourcegeneration.org: Resource Generation works with young people with class privilege who are trying to figure all this stuff out.

www.boldergiving.org: Profiles people who gave away significant portions of their assets.

www.millionsforreparations.com: Essential reading about reparations.

www.cwsworkshop.org: Challenging White Supremacy. Tons of really good articles about privilege and anti-oppression work.

www.classactionnet.org: Challenging classism.

www.faireconomy.org: United for a Fair Economy “raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart.”

www.poormagazine.org: POOR Magazine’s awesome website. Lots of good articles.

www.racialwealthdivide.org: More about the racial wealth gap.

SEIU in Cuba

2007-06-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

US Unionists Impressed by Cuban Achievements
Mathaba News Network

Havana, June 13 (acn) Representatives of the health division 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in the United States showed their admiration for Cuba's achievements on health care services and biotechnology.

During a visit to the headquarters of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), the US unionists, nurses, and social workers got acquainted with teaching and training methods, the medical industry and other aspects of welfare work.

The visitors agreed that Cuba not only provides free and easy access to medical attention for its people but also shares its medical achievements with its solidarity contribution to the rest of the world.

Continued...

Dear Oliver,

2007-06-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

EL LIBERTARIO, # 49, 2007 - on the dark side of the moon.

From the editorial group of El Libertario, newspaper of CRA, Comision de Relaciones Anarquistas from Venezuela, we reflect on the prospects for this country after the seemingly undisputable electoral victory of Hugo Chavez. --- Venezuela has landed on the dark side of the moon. The recently opened 21st century seems to be escaping us for good. We will not have a chance to face it with any prospect of success. Eight years of speeches drawn from a time past, eight years of inefficiency in the management of public funds, of unstoppable corruption, of the waste of immense riches, of awful public services, of leaving the most basic necessities unsatisfied, of unemployment, of the breaking down of the industrial infrastructure, including the oil industry, of no social security, of charity as a way of survival, of lies and debasement as pervading attitudes...eight years of totalitarian control over the social and political system by the faction in power, of lack of ideas and of any initiative which could mark the way, of deprivation of the educational establishment.....yet eight years of all this have not been enough to make it clear to a substantial fraction of the people that a change was needed. And they voted to keep Chavez in power.

Continued...

And so it begins...

2007-06-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Jyrki Raina writes about the project to create the first trans-Atlantic union
Trade Union News from Finland

Helsinki (18.06.2007 – Juhani Artto) Two months ago the United Steelworkers (USW) from the USA and two unions from the United Kingdom, Amicus and T&GWU, announced their intention to merge into the first trans-Atlantic trade union.

Certainly, the first reaction of numerous union activists around the world, when reading the news, was to think about how the merger project relates to the efforts to strengthen the global unions, such as IMF, UNI, ITF, PSI and a handful of others.

Recently Jyrki Raina, one of the most visible Finns in the international trade union movement, approached the same question in his column in Ahjo, the magazine of the Finnish Metalworkers’ union.

“The reasons (of the project), presented by Amicus and USW leaders, are interesting. They want to create an international trade union that really would be able to negotiate about working conditions, by force of their 3.4 million rank and file members, on equal footing with the multinationals.”

Continued...

Chinese "Communist" Liberation

2007-06-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

China detains 168 after brick kiln slavery scandal

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained 168 people accused of holding workers in virtual slavery under appalling conditions at brick kilns in north-central provinces of the country, a state newspaper reported on Monday.

Of those, 48 were caught in Shanxi province and the rest in neighbouring Henan, the official China Daily said.

The scandal has undermined the ruling Communist Party's promises to build a "harmonious" society with improved rights and income for the nation's hundreds of millions of poor farmers.

The State Council, or Cabinet, has sent a team to investigate the abuses, which have shocked the country and provoked public outrage.

The government has given each of the freed workers -- more than 500 so far -- 1,000 yuan ($131.2) as "sympathy" money, the Beijing News added.

In recent days, Chinese media have exposed brutal conditions for mostly migrant workers at kilns and privately run mines across resource-rich central China.

Continued...

Anarchists Throw Poop

2007-06-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

Anarchists promise blood bath for Homowo
myjoyonline.com

As if the nasty incident of smearing human excreta, an obnoxious practice referred to as shit bombing on a scared shrine house of the Ga state and a street leading to the shrine and the violence of last Wednesday are not enough, sections of the Ga youth are already promising a blood bath, come the Homowo festival.

The nasty incidence of shit bombing and violence characterized the lifting of the month long ban on drumming and noise making by the Ga Mantse, King Tackie Tawiah II, last Wednesday when several people were hurt and a strong police presence was required to see the ceremony through.

Barely a week after those nasty incidents, some individuals and youth groups in Ga Mashie are promising mayhem until issues surrounding the disputed enstoolment of the Ga King are resolved.

According to The Independent, its investigations have revealed that the youth promising chaos are those against the recent enstoolment and coronation of the current Ga king, Mantse Tackie Tawiah II.

Continued...

Unions on the global gaming industry

2007-06-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Union networks for Asia Pacific Gaming
Labour news from UNI global union - for trade unions in a global services economy.

Union networks across the growing giants of the gaming industry in Asia Pacific were launched at the first ever workshop held by UNI in Macau - the world’s biggest gambling city that is building a new Las Vegas on the South China Sea.

Gaming accounts for about half of the wealth of this former Portuguese colony that, like nearby Hong Kong, is now a Special Administrative Region of Communist China and is fast growing its casinos, hotels and entertainment resorts.

Gaming is in rapid growth regionally - with GGR (gross gaming revenue) rising 20% last year - and globally at 8.8% annually with countries from the UK to Singapore relaxing restrictions or removing bans on casinos that are increasingly seen as part of leisure and tourism.

UNITE HERE from the USA, which has a large membership and collective agreements in Las Vegas and other American cities, joined unions from eleven countries in the region in Macau.

The aim is to develop closer working between Gaming affiliates and exchange information on organising and bargaining - and to begin to build a dialogue with the gaming giants who increasingly dominate the industry.

A follow-up seminar on organising is planned for next year and UNITE HERE has offered assistance to UNI-Asia Pacific and UNI Gaming in training and to share their knowledge from organising successes in the US.

A meeting for Gaming unions in the Americas is planned for September.

Continued...

Tarpinian on CtW's trip to China

2007-06-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

The Question Isn't Why We Went to China -- It's Why Wouldn't We?

There’s no question as to why the modern labor movement would need to pay attention to China. Every major U.S. and foreign transnational corporation has growing operations there, meaning Chinese workers are one of the main hammers that global capital uses to drive down wages and conditions for workers in advanced capitalist countries like the United States.

That’s why a leadership delegation from Change to Win went to China to see if we could expand the front in our mission to Restore the American Dream, to follow the jobs and to find out for ourselves whether we there is a realistic prospect of uniting with Chinese workers that face the same challenges, working for the same global corporations that employ workers in the U.S.

I’m going to be discussing what we learned and observed in other posts, but let me start with why we went, because all the buzz in both the Chinese and American press was not that Change to Win went overseas. Rather, our visit was historic for two interrelated reasons: First, it marked the first time that a U.S. labor federation met with the Chinese labor federation on equal footing. Second, it generated new thinking on how to tackle the challenges of globalization and the downward pressure on wages and living conditions in the United States.

Continued...

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

2007-06-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

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...

Zabalaza on Public Sector Strikes

2007-06-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

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...

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

2007-06-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

'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...

Free Advertisement for the Losers Across the Pond

2007-06-14T00:46:00.000-07:00

libcom.org is a resource for all people who wish to fight to improve their lives, their communities and their working conditions.

We want to discuss, learn from successes and failures of the past and develop strategies to increase the power we, as ordinary people, have over our own lives.

Who
The libcom group is a small collective of libertarian communists based in and around London, we maintain libcom.org, and as individuals are involved with a number of other groups and activity.

Continued...

We're back motherfuckers

2007-06-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

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

ChuckO Munson "Snitchjackets" Anarchist He Dislikes

2006-03-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

ChuckO Munson: Dastardly Villain of Infoshop Fame

Out of pure spite ChuckO Munson accuses well-known anarchist bastard, Duke Aaron, of being an FBI informant after exchanging insults on a public anarchist message board. Duke may be a fucking prick, but this is not how an anarchist deals with conflict. These type of malicious accusations destroy movements and historically, have gotten solid revolutionaries killed.

Discussion Located Here

Munson's email address is chuck@mutualaid.org and his phone number is 913.940.7426 if people would like to let him know what they think of this type of counter-revolutionary tactic.

Possibly the dumbest thing in McAnarchyism

2006-03-17T03:51:00.000-08:00

V for Vendetta is about Anarchy
A for Anarchy

Anarchists: This Friday marks the beginning of our most important opportunity in decades to communicate with millions about the possibility of a world without capitalism or coercion. On Friday, March 17, 2006, the long awaited film version of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, V for Vendetta, will premier throughout the US. V for Vendetta is the story of an anarchist who dismantles a fascist state through propaganda of the deed, inspiring the masses to revolt with a vision of building an anarchist future. The book’s protagonist does not simply promote vague anti-authoritarianism or nondescript appeals to “question authority” but explicitly and compellingly calls for the masses to eliminate the state and replace it with anarchy.

Unsurprisingly, this radical message has been lost in the translation to Hollywood’s watered-down film version. Warner Bros. presents a hero rebelling against fascism and advocating “freedom”, yet never suggests that until the state is destroyed, no one will truly be free. Alan Moore has described the script of the film as “rubbish” and had demanded that his name be removed from it.

Time and again, anarchists have seen our message distorted, our comrades martyred, and our stories erased by the corporate and governmental
servants of the ruling class. We cannot allow this to happen again!

An ad hoc group of anarchists in New York City have launched AforAnarchy.com, a website and education campaign designed to reinject anarchist politics into V for Vendetta and radicalize audiences of the film.

We are calling for anarchists everywhere to use the film as an opportunity for education and dialogue. Through the use of literature, speakouts, lit tables, and street theater outside movie theaters showing the film, we can inspire moviegoers leaving the film to join the fight for a stateless society. In New York, we will begin doing these things at sneak previews on March 16th and will continue at theaters for the duration of the films’s run in theaters.

To this end, we have created a number of ideas and tools that we hope you will find helpful. (Further information and downloads can be found
at AforAnarchy.org in the Contact & Press section):

* We have prepared a flyer to distribute at your local movie theater where V is showing revealing the graphic novel’s anarchist politics and encouraging moviegoers to embrace anarchy. We’ve deliberately kept the politics fairly general in an attempt to create a document that can represent anarchists of all tendencies.

Feel free to modify it to suit the needs of your local community. And of course, if you don’t like this flyer, by all means, create one that you prefer.

* Engage audience through costumed role playing of “deleted scenes”—acting out portions of the graphic novel where V speaks in support of anarchy.

* We have designed sticker mock-ups to promote the website that you can download, print on sticker paper, and stick all sorts of places. Of course, we DO NOT suggest that you put them on V for Vendetta movie ads, as this would be vandalism, and vandalism is against the law.

* While many of us are skeptical of the corporate and in some cases even the alternative media, they can be a powerful vehicle for getting the attention of large numbers of people. While we obviously can’t expect them to accurately represent our entire message, we can at least use them to pique people’s curiosity and drive people to the website, where we can present an unfiltered message, To this end, we have prepared a model press release available on the website that you can send to your local media documenting your V for Vendetta related outreach activities., and will be sending a national press release, which can include information on your local actions if you email it to adam@wetlands-preserve.org.

We invite you to use these resources and join us in any or all of the actions listed above. Our hope is to gain a nationwide, significant, and unsuspected response to the film’s release that will lead moviegoers to a far more radical place than the corporate filmmakers behind this film intended, and help to bring thousands of new people to the anarchist movement. We thank you for your consideration and look forward to hearing from you.

For Anarchy,

aforanarchy.com

(an ad hoc collective on individual members of groups like New York Metro Anarchist Alliance, NEFAC, Wetlands Activism Collective, Freegan.info, Students for A Democratic Society, Libertad Skool Collective and other groups)

A for Anarchy

Chicago Nurses Do something ambiguous

2006-03-17T03:47:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO NURSES JOIN NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO END NURSING CRISIS
SEIU

CHICAGO—Registered nurses in the Chicago area are joining nurses from across the country to advocate for real solutions to the nation’s patient care crisis. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced the launch of the new Nurse Alliance of SEIU, a distinct national membership organization by, for and of nurses. The Nurse Alliance of SEIU also announced the launch of a national campaign, Value Care, Value Nurses, focusing on improving the quality patient care and bringing nurses back to the bedside.

Today the Nurse Alliance of SEIU also released a white paper by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), emphasizing the importance of registered nurses in the delivery of quality patient care and the ways in which poor conditions in hospitals are devaluing these worthy caregivers. The paper cites low pay, short staffing, and mandatory overtime as conditions that have caused nurses to leave the bedside and shows how raising nurse salaries will help to draw more nurses to the profession.

“Over 83,000 registered nurses chose to leave the bedside right here in Illinois. It is time that we start addressing the real reasons and commit to real solutions to bring them back. The future of patient care and the nursing profession both depend on it,” said Karen Backus, RN, Director of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU-Illinois.

The IWPR report found that, nationally, 35 percent of employed nurses who are not working in nursing are in positions of higher pay and 46 percent of them find better hours in other work environments.

In the spirit of unity, the Illinois Nurses Association (INA) and the Nurse Alliance of SEIU-Illinois will be convening a round table of registered nurses with area legislators and other officials on Monday, April 3rd to discuss possible solutions to the nursing crisis.

“There is a 9% RN vacancy rate in our state, and we as nurses know why RNs are leaving the bedside and what it is going to take to keep them there. We look forward to the opportunity to discuss it with legislators,” said Sandra Robinson, RN, who works at the Chicago Department of Public Health and chairs the INA E&GW Commission.

Parties interested in the April 3rd event should contact Karen Backus at 312.235.4739 for more information.

For more information about the Value Care, Value Nurses campaign, go to:
Nurse Alliance Midwest
Value Care Value Nurses

Go Fedaykin

2006-03-17T03:40:00.000-08:00

Public service talks to resume Friday
BCGEU

The union representing 25,000 government employees who provide important public services in communities across the province has agreed to the provincial government’s request to return to the bargaining table. Talks are set to resume tomorrow, March 17, the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) said today.

“I have received word from the government that they are prepared to make us the significant new offer we said we needed. If it’s an offer that addresses our members’ key issues of privatization, contracting out and fair wages, our committee is ready to work hard to get an agreement,” said George Heyman, BCGEU president.

The union stepped away from the bargaining table on Monday, March 13, after seven straight days of talks failed to result in a tentative agreement. The union has since commenced essential service negotiations with the government, in the event of a strike.

“We told the government’s negotiators on Monday that while we are committed to achieving a negotiated settlement, their last offer wasn’t going to do it,” Heyman said. “We reiterated that any deal had to address privatization and contracting out, and provide for fair wage increases that keep pace with inflation.

“The government’s last offer did not provide the assurances our members need to protect them from privatization and contracting out. And their last wage offer was far less than what we need,” Heyman said.

“I’m optimistic that the government has heard the strong message from our members who voted 80 percent in favour of strike to back our contract demands that we deserve better in this round of bargaining and are prepared to fight for it. With a new offer from government and some more hard work by both sides on key issues, there’s no reason why we can’t reach an agreement by Sunday.”

BCGEU

New Issue of Green Anarchy!

2006-03-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

Seriously, Read the Bosses News

2006-03-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hotels Counter False Union Charges -- AH&LA: Hotels Provide Competitive Wages and Generous Benefits, Union Strategy is Designed To Grow Declining Membership Ranks
Hospitality.Net

The American Hotel & Lodging Association today challenged assertions made by the "Change to Win" labor coalition about hotel workers' wages and benefits.

"Contrary to the accusations made by this group yesterday, the hotel industry provides affordable, quality health care, competitive wages that grow year after year, and generous benefits to its hardworking employees," said AH&LA President/CEO Joe McInerney, CHA. "These false claims mask 'Change to Win's' real agenda, which is to use union dues money to grow its declining membership rolls."

According to AH&LA, "Change to Win" has championed an organizing technique called "card check," which would eliminate the traditional secret ballot elections for union representation. The "Change to Win" unions want the company to agree to unionization, instead of letting employees vote on this important issue and decide for themselves. The unions have also demanded that many employers sign a "neutrality agreement," which prevents an employer from communication with employees about the pros and cons of unionization.

Continued...

P-CRAC Recommends Reading the Bosses News

2006-03-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

Hilton Reportedly Target of Nationwide Strike Plan
By Eugene Gilligan, Senior Editor
Comercial Property News

Hilton Hotels Corp. may be targeted for a hotel strike in New York, and the lodging industry nationwide may face tough contract negotiations with their workers this year.

According to a report in today's New York Daily News, Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel and Motel Trade Council, will insist that his union conduct separate negotiations with hotel owners and with Hilton when the workers' contact expires on July 1. He added that Hilton has violated contracts with the union in the past, so he did not want it to be part of any multi-employer negotiations.

"We're a service business, and we have a long history of treating our team members fairly," a Hilton spokesperson told CPN this afternoon reacting to the report. "It's interesting that we're called a target. After Sept. 11, while other hotel companies had mass layoffs, we kept our people working."

Continued...

Lock this out mofo's

2006-03-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

AK STEEL: Lockout 'corporate greed at its finest' says Butler, Pa., union leader
Pa., union president shares thoughts on lockout, sale rumor
The Middletown Journal

As members of the Armco Employees Independent Federation continued to staff picket lines at most of the gates at AK Steel Corp.’s Middletown Works, the president of another union paid a visit to Middletown late Friday and Saturday to get a first-hand look at what may be on the horizon for his membership.

Jim Gallagher, president of the United Auto Workers Local 3303 that represents AK employees at its Butler, Pa., facility, came down to Middletown to lend his support to the more than 2,600 AEIF employees who were locked-out Tuesday by AK after contract negotiations failed to reach a settlement.

“I just think the whole thing could have been avoided,” Gallagher said. “The company could have kept talking to the union while they kept working.”

Money AK is spending on extra security and hotels for replacement workers could have gone toward an agreement with the AEIF, he said.

“This situation is corporate greed at its finest,” he said.

As to some of the moves made by AK prior to the lockout, Gallagher said the company videotape sent to employees backfired. The video, which Gallagher said he believed was designed to intimidate employees, instead brought the AEIF closer together.

“AK Steel is a great union organizer,” Gallagher said. “(The video) showed they really don’t understand.

“Hopefully they’ll get to a settlement,” he said. “It’s early and pretty calm now. But is weighs a lot on a person to watch scabs go in each day at the plant.

“AK’s MO is to lock them out,” he said.

Continued...

'Bout time

2006-03-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

Public union's 'award' leaves a trail of ill will
S. Renee Mitchell
The Oregonian

Four times in the past four years, Multnomah County's employees union has bestowed a Tar and Feather Award on a county manager who did something union leaders didn't like.

No one complained much about the name of the award. But for many black folks, it stirs painful memories of a not-so-long-ago time in America's history when tarring and feathering complemented lynching like jelly does a child's peanut butter sandwich.

Yet, on July 26, the union gave the Tar and Feather Award to a department led by a black man, Lolenzo Poe, who served on the Portland School Board for four years.

The county has a minuscule number of black managers. And Poe's agency, the Department of School and Community Partnerships, is one of the smallest and most ethnically diverse.

"It offended me and some others," Poe says of the award, "but because it was a union issue, I chose not to say anything. I kind of bit my tongue."

But whatever hurt feelings the award created calcified -- especially since an employee survey in 2004 implied that the county is a hostile workplace for people of color. Of the county's 4,288 employees, only 288 -- 6.7 percent -- are black.

"In its way, it was just unintentional ignorance," says Carolyn Edgett, a senior human resource analyst. "There are a couple of environments that are conducive to this kind of thing."

But life went on. Then, seven months later -- on the afternoon of the first day of Black History Month -- the issue resurfaced. A county employee passed news of the Tar and Feather Award to a manager who gave it to Edgett, who told County Chairwoman Diane Linn, who fired off a strongly written e-mail.

"I have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of behavior in the workplace," Linn writes, "and consider it to be both inappropriate and injurious."

Linn directed a few folks to meet with union leaders. Her chief operating officer, Iris Bell, who is black, acknowledges "things got heated." She adds: "Not everybody in the union was pleased with what we said."

The next day, Becky Steward, who has been union president for a little over a year, apologized. She also changed the name of the award to "Rotten Eggs," and she pulled the offensive phrase from past newsletters posted on www.local88.ws.

Steward also agreed to offer voluntary diversity training to her union leaders and general employees, especially since most of them didn't realize the term could be offensive.

Before management complained, Steward says, "I hadn't heard anyone sharing with me how insensitive and thoughtless we were about that."

Continued...

Micks with Bricks

2006-03-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

Dublin Riots: What Happened and Why
A political analysis of the Dublin riots and why nobody saw them coming
by Joe - WSM - personal capacity

I, like almost everybody I know, didn't predict the events of Saturday. In fact the only person I know who did predict a major riot was a friend of mine who happens to hail from the wee North - in retrospect I should have realised that he had his finger on the pulse, for not only does he have much more experience of sectarian marches, but through his job he knows many of the people who were involved and has an unusual insight and sympathy for those people who most Dubliners write off as 'scumbags' and 'knackers'. This article is an analysis of what happened and why almost everybody got it so wrong. This article is a companion piece to the photo essay which I published yesterday.

I have a lot of experience of protesting and policing, having attended many of the most hyped and heavily policed events that Dublin has seen in the last decade as well as some of the biggest and most volatile international protests that have occurred around the world, both as a participant and a cameraman. From this it is obvious to me that the police were similarly completely surprised by the events of Saturday February 25th in central Dublin.

I also know that the Gardai are more than capable of policing contentious and potentially volatile protests in what would be regarded as a way that is in line with international policing norms. I was there on the Navan road when 3,000 anti-capitalist protestors made the march to Farmleigh on Mayday 2004. On that day there were thousands of police deployed and although the protestors managed to get much closer to the location of the summit than the police would have liked, the state was never in any danger of losing control of the situation. They had deployed thousands of police in riot gear, backed up by water cannon and a massive deployment of surveillance technology and they successfully contained the protestors much as their international colleagues routinely do. Therefore, I do not think that it is conceivable that the complete under-preparedness of the gardai could possibly be a result of incompetence in terms of their ability to police events - they have proved very successful at containing much bigger protests in the past....

There have been some suggestions that our power-crazed minister for justice or other sinister forces within the 26 country state may have deliberately failed to prepare adequately to police this event in order to further some security or anti-republican agenda. While I'm sure the minister for justice would love to have the power to do this, I'm also certain that he doesn't and that this theory is entirely implausible. Gardai are generally not happy to be sent out under prepared to face rioters and if there had been any inkling that a riot was likely to ensue, the guards would have been extremely unwilling - to say the least - to be used as target practice in such a scheme, pawns in the minister's power game. As it is the gardai on the ground were extremely angry and remain so that they were sent out to police a situation without anything like the resources that they would have needed to contain the situation. Furthermore, I talked to the Superintendent who appeared to be in charge of operations on the day and several ordinary gardai and they all expressed the same opinion - that they had anticipated some 'trouble' but nothing like the rioting that happened and while it is a foolish person who believes anything just because the Gardai say it is so (I remember the stream of lies and smears that the Garda press office came out with in the run up to Mayday 2004) - these reactions seemed genuine and unscripted.

Therefore, I think it is clear that the guards were genuinely taken completely by surprise by the events of the day and I think that the reasons for them being surprised were exactly the same as the reasons that I and almost all of the other political activists whom I know were similarly taken by surprise.

Continued...

Best of luck losers

2006-03-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

AFL-CIO alters negotiation strategy
Union to hold talks with one unit in each of four industries
By BRIAN TUMULTY
Press-Gazette

Trying to reinvent itself, the AFL-CIO is taking a lesson out of the playbook of one of its member unions, the United Auto Workers, that targets one of the Big Three automakers for contract negotiations to set industry standards for pay and benefits.

AFL-CIO officials attending their federation's winter meeting said Tuesday that they are realigning the way they do business by starting four "industry coordinating committees" covering the entertainment and media industry, nurses, telecommunications and public employees.

One of them, the Arts Entertainment Media Industry Coordinating Committee, is likely to target one of the nation's broadcast networks next year for contract negotiations involving union members ranging from actors and TV newscasters to stage technicians and office workers.

Similarly, unions representing public employees have formed a coalition that is considering trying to target one or more states where they have recently lost or never had collective bargaining power. In the past year, Republican governors in Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky have abolished bargaining rights for public employees.

"We have to reinvigorate ourselves with the sense that we can protect ourselves," said Ed McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Continued...

Nothing but hawks left

2006-03-05T06:50:00.000-08:00

Forward Association Mourns Passing of Harold Ostroff
Forward

Harold Ostroff, the longtime general manager of America's best-known Jewish newspaper and a giant in the worlds of affordable housing and Yiddish culture, died Thursday March 2 at the age of 82.

Ostroff became general manager of the Forward Association, owner of the Jewish Daily Forward and its radio station WEVD, in 1976. At the time the two Yiddish cultural institutions were struggling to survive in the face of a steep decline in the Yiddish-speaking population, largely a legacy of the Holocaust. Over the next two decades, Mr. Ostroff revamped the newspaper and launched prestigious new publications in English and Russian, restoring the institution to financial stability and reestablishing it as a premier source of news and information on Jewish affairs. He retired as general manager in 1997.

"Harold loved newspapers," Samuel Norich, his successor as publisher of the Forward, said. "He valued them as an instrument of community, and of social justice. He loved to read them, and he loved to have a hand in making them."

Continued...

Wiki War

2006-03-03T08:54:00.000-08:00

Sexton’s Wiki page under fire
by Josh Burd
Washington Square News

The labor dispute at NYU has reached a new frontier — Wikipedia.

Internet users who support the Graduate Student Organizing Committee have been making their views known on the free, nonprofit online encyclopedia that allows visitors to edit articles. Many users — either identified by user name or IP address — have repeatedly edited the biographical article about NYU President John Sexton, whose administration has been at odds with the striking graduate students.

More than 100 total edits have been made to the article, including edits with one-sided accounts of the labor conflict as well as direct attacks on Sexton.

One of the more contentious changes to the article was made this past January, when someone anonymously wrote, “Sexton is a major-buster. He’s a trying to get rid of the legitimately organized and majority-approved union of graduate employees.”

The edits on Wikipedia, which allow visitors to view the editing history and compare past revisions of a given article, were first made in July and appeared more frequently after GSOC began striking on Nov. 9. Since then, several other hostile edits have been made by unnamed users, including one in October that referred to Sexton’s trademark hugs as “obnoxiously patronizing and demagogic.”

The administration does not seem concerned, but university spokesman Josh Taylor said the activity on the site is a sign of tampering with NYU's image.

“While President Sexton is familiar with Wikipedia, he has not personally used the site,” Taylor said on Sexton's behalf in an e-mail. “From my perspective, however, the disputed posts are all too reflective of the distorted view that many outside our community continue to try to spread.”

Continued...

FBI CLC Raid

2006-03-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

Newscast

Not yet Broken News

2006-03-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

The NYC Central Labor Council is currently being raided by the FBI. P-CRAC is sure the mainstream news will have the story momentarily.

What exactly is a radical again?

2006-03-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

Why Are There So Many Radicals in New Orleans?
Written by Owen Thompson
Toward Freedom

In my two weeks volunteering with the anarchist-friendly Common Ground Collective this past January, I met a lot of people who considered themselves progressives, radicals, and/or anarchists, enough to make it clear that a lot of them saw their sociopolitical views as having some connection to their volunteer work in New Orleans. That work consisted (and consists, as Common Ground will continue to drawn in hundreds and maybe thousands of new and returning volunteers in the coming months) mostly of gutting houses for residents of the devastated Ninth Ward and other impoverished areas, but also of providing medical services, distributing supplies (food, clothing, hygienic products, cleaning supplies, etc.), and doing outreach in an attempt to help the community organize its response to the city’s controversial rebuilding plan.

Identifying the connection between the former (those aforementioned sociopolitical views) and the latter (the volunteer work) turned out to be much harder than I expected. In fact, I remain doubtful that I’ve found an answer at all.

It is certainly not hard to come up with some reasons why anarchists would see New Orleans as a good gathering point right now—not only in terms of flocking to the city itself, but also by placing the issues raised by Katrina at the center of radical discussions. The failure at all levels of government to protect or even rescue the people of this city was near absolute, and surely prompted a crisis of conscience among many Americans who had previously assumed that their tax dollars guaranteed their safety in the event of such a catastrophe. As pointed out by a disturbingly enthusiastic forward sent around the Internet (by apparent "anarchists") in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, this presented a golden opportunity to call attention not just to the corruption and inefficiency of the current state, but to the failure of states in general as a model for organizing society.

If imminent rebellion and social upheaval were on the minds of most volunteers at Common Ground, though, it didn’t really show. There was plenty of discussion regarding the evils of racism, inequality, and hierarchy—with a strong consensus that all these things were bad, and that our presence in New Orleans was somehow combating them—I never heard anyone indicate that they expected a wave of revolutionary fury to spiral out from Louisiana and engulf the nation. More to the point, if anyone did believe that might happen, they never cited it as their reason for volunteering.

Instead, I found most people I talked to subscribed to either one or both of the following two statements:

1. I came to New Orleans because people here need help, and I can help them (or at least can try to help them).

2. I came to New Orleans to make myself a better person (or a better anarchist, activist, citizen, radical, American, etc.).

Continued...

Anarchist Women Power Lifting

2006-03-02T09:58:00.001-08:00

Platform of the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria, 1945
Federatsia na Anarkho Komunistite ot Balgaria - FAKB

Basic positions

We reject the present social system of State and capitalist centralization, as it is founded on the principle of the State which is contrary to the initiative and freedom of the people. Every form of power involves economic, political or spiritual privilege. Its application on an economic level is represented by private property, on a political level by the State and on a spiritual level by religion. These three forms of power are linked. If you touch one, the others are changed and, inversely, if you keep one form of power, it will inevitably lead to the re-establishment of the other two. This is why we repudiate the very principle of power.

We are supporters of the abolition of private property, of the State and of religion, and of the total suppression of every form and institution of constraint and violence. We reject every teaching and every social, political and economic-political movement aimed at maintaining the State, private property, the church, and constraint and violence in social relations.

We repudiate fascism, which is a historic attempt to restore absolutism, autocracy and the strength of the political form of power with the aim of defending the economic and spiritual dominance of the privileged classes.

We reject political democracy, as it does not foresee the disappearance of the principle of power, and drives the masses to bewilderment by leading them, through lies and illusions, into fights which are against their interests, and corrupts them through the exercise of power and the maintaining of the appetite for domination. Political democracy, furthermore, shows that it is totally incapable of solving the great social problems and that it fosters chaos, contradictions and crime as a result of its social foundations based on the centralized State and capitalism.

We repudiate State socialism as it leads to State capitalism - the most monstrous form of economic exploitation and oppression, and of total domination of social and individual freedom.

We are for anarchist communism or free communism, which will replace private property with the complete socialization of lands, factories and mines, and of all goods and instruments of production. The State will be replaced by a federation of free communes regionally, provincially, nationally and internationally united. The church and religion will be replaced by a free individual moral and a scientific vision.

Unlike all other socio-economic and political concepts and organizations, Anarchist Communism is federalist.

The new social organization that will replace the State will be built and run from the bottom upwards. All the inhabitants of any given village will form the local free commune, and all the local free communes will unite regionally, provincially, nationally and internationally in unions and federations and in a universal general social confederation.

The new organization of society's production will be formed by a tight network of countless local agricultural enterprises, artisans, mines, industry, transport, etc., united on a regional, provincial, national and international level in production unions and federations as part of a general confederation of production.

Society's new organization of exchange, consumption and supply will likewise be represented by a dense and complex network of regional, provincial and national organizations, unions and federations, grouped in a general confederation of exchange and consumption for satisfying the needs of all inhabitants.

All human social activity and all transport, communications, education, healthcare, and so on, will be organized in a similar fashion.

With this organizational system of all the functions of the various aspects of social life, there will be no place in society for the power of one individual over another or for the exploitation of one by another.

The basic principle of production and distribution for the building of the new social system will be: everyone will produce according to their possibilities and everyone will receive according to their needs.

Continued...

Anarchist Women Power Lifting

2006-03-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

Zombies Hate Workers

2006-03-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

CAFTA's Corpse Revived
by MARK ENGLER
The Nation

A year ago the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was a corpse. The Bush Administration resurrected it with the darkest of political sorcery. And now the lumbering beast is growing ever more monstrous--and arousing new controversy.

On March 1, two months after the planned January implementation date for the trade deal, CAFTA goes into effect between the United States and El Salvador. Yet for the five other countries that are party to the treaty--Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic--a starting date remains undetermined. In past months, contentious debates about the implementation of the agreement have triggered new protests throughout Central America, calling into question what the trade pact will look like in practice.

After the White House succeeded in narrowly passing CAFTA through Congress last summer, many "free trade" advocates considered the treaty a done deal. The agreement squeaked through the House in a historically close vote of 217 to 215 and appeared to have finally weathered the storm generated by its diverse critics.

A new wave of dissent in Central America, however, is creating fresh difficulties for CAFTA defenders. In Costa Rica, the only country that has yet to ratify the deal, former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias was expected to win back the presidency by a landslide in early February. In a surprise turn, his opponent Ottón Solís surged in the polls at the last minute, carried by his objection to Arias's strong pro-CAFTA stance. The final contest was so close as to warrant a lengthy recount to identify the winner.

Based on the current tally, it appears almost certain that election officials will declare Arias the winner. Still, Solís's opposition party will likely carry enough seats in the legislative assembly to make it very difficult for Arias to pass CAFTA. Contending that the treaty would "bankrupt Costa Rica's agricultural sector," Solís vowed this week that, regardless of the election's final outcome, he would continue championing the demand for CAFTA's renegotiation.

As the experience of other Central American countries shows, controversy can reignite even after CAFTA is ratified. In Guatemala and El Salvador, the Bush Administration's advocacy on behalf of US special interests has sparked new disputes during the implementation phase of the treaty. There, US Trade Representative Rob Portman has tried to squeeze even more concessions out of the Central American partners before agreeing to certify their inclusion in the deal. Governments in Guatemala and El Salvador have cried foul, saying that the White House's current agenda for reforms goes beyond the terms of the agreement.

According to the journal Inside US Trade, Portman has pushed for changes to Guatemalan intellectual property law that would extend the life of patents on many name-brand pharmaceuticals. Already, the United States has compelled Guatemala to repeal a law designed to expand access to generic drugs. Organizations such as Doctors Without Borders have denounced CAFTA's impact on the Guatemalan AIDS epidemic, arguing that limits on generic antiretrovirals amount to a death sentence for many patients. The White House's demands only worsen the restrictions.

In response, Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein has blasted the Bush Administration's hardball tactics: "It's an affront to Latin America when a government says it wants to be a 'partner' but then is only interested in our money and commodities," he told the Associated Press in December.

Continued...

RWDSU Still Better than UFCW

2006-03-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

Macy's Employees, Members of Local 1-S, RWDSU/UFCW Rally for Fair and Decent Contract
RWDSU

Members of RWDSU Local 1-S (Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW), local and national labor leaders, elected officials and other supporters rallied today for a "fair and decent" contract for all Macy's New York employees. RWDSU Local 1-S currently represents over 3,500 workers in Macy's Herald Square, Bronx, Queens and White Plains stores.

Last week, the retail workers union announced that its members, employed by Macy's Federated Department Stores, voted to authorize a strike should a job action become necessary to obtain what the union calls a fair and decent contract. A strike could occur if a new contract is not agreed upon by the current deadline of March 3rd. No strike date has been set.

Contract negotiations with Macy's started last month, but have moved at a slow pace, and a federal mediator has been called in by both sides. Major conflict issues include Macy's proposals that demand employee concessions in areas such as healthcare, job security, and general wage increases. Under Macy's current healthcare proposal, a majority of employees, mostly women and minorities, will be unable to afford healthcare benefits and will force workers to pay upwards of 60% of their healthcare premiums. Federated is currently one of the top employers in the state that is transferring the cost of healthcare for its employees to New York taxpayers. Macy's is also refusing general wage increases. Last week, Federated announced triple digit profits during the Company's annual earnings report.

Continued...

what a total fuckbag

2006-03-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

Civil rights icon Young to defend Wal-Mart
Former aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to combat criticism of retailer
Reuters

Civil rights leader and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young will become the public face of a Wal-Mart-backed group whose aim is to combat criticism of the world’s largest retailer, the group said Monday.

Young, who was an aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights protests of the 1960s and served as ambassador to the United Nations under President Jimmy Carter, will serve as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart’s national steering committee, the group said in a statement.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was among the financial backers of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group of people ”who understand and appreciate Wal-Mart’s positive impact on the working families of America,” according to its Web site.

Continued...

Race, Hotels, and Crap

2006-02-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

Picket Fences: From Dream to Fantasy
Hotel workers seek to beat poverty
By STEVEN MIKULAN
LA Weekly

When Ana Mendez’s home was built 60 years ago, its serpentine flagstone walkway and sunken living room embodied the middle-class dream for white Los Angeles after World War II. Today, the Lennox house still represents middle-class membership for many immigrant workers — but getting there is a lot harder than it used to be, making home ownership a virtual fantasy for millions of low-income wage earners. Mendez and her family moved into their Felton Street home about a year ago, after living for 20 years in one of the hulking apartment complexes that sit across the street. Houses in Mendez’s crime-plagued neighborhood, three blocks from the San Diego Freeway and about 1,000 feet beneath planes landing at nearby LAX, sell for about $400,000 — nearly four times what they went for a decade ago.

Last week the Mendezes’ living room was crowded with employees of the big nonunionized airport hotels on Century Boulevard, and they had lots to say about obstacles to the American Dream. They had come, organized by the UNITE HERE union, to share stories of abuse and indifference with actor Danny Glover, who was in town as part of UNITE HERE’s Hotel Workers Rising campaign, a nationwide push to raise working and living standards in one of the few American industries whose work force cannot be offshored.

Glover was in the middle of a long day that wouldn’t end until that evening, when he spoke at a downtown rally in front of the Sheraton Hotel. He and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, along with UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm, had begun the morning by strolling into the LAX Hilton, where they exchanged unauthorized pleasantries with workers in the kitchen, reception desk and lobby areas — as stone-faced security staff looked on. Some workers wore union buttons and embraced Glover. Others were more guarded; one woman told Glover in a low voice that she was very afraid of management but grateful for his support.

After leaving the Hilton, the Lethal Weapon co-star joined former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards for a luncheon at Inglewood’s Forum Club. That event was chaired by embattled County Federation of Labor head Martin Ludlow, four days before he resigned amid an investigation into campaign violations. (City Attorney Delgadillo did not attend.) Union presidents Andy Stern, Bruce Raynor and Maria Elena Durazo were served chicken and rice, as were L.A. Councilman Herb Wesson, Los Angeles Sentinel owner Danny Bakewell and community activist Tony Muhammad.

The largely African-American audience heard from Wilhelm that, according to his union’s statistics, the hotel industry, once an employment haven for blacks, has all but stopped hiring them. They also heard that the average annual wage for a housekeeper is $17,340 when the federally computed poverty line for a family of four is $19,157, and that the medical insurance offered workers by hotel chains is an empty gesture because few can afford it.

Continued...

Hoffa seems left of Labor Notes lately

2006-02-24T15:10:00.000-08:00

Teamsters call death probe tainted
By SCOTT FALLON
North Jersey News

U.S. Embassy officials in El Salvador insisted Wednesday that the right people were tried in the 2004 murder of a Cliffside Park labor leader, even though two of three were acquitted over the weekend.

The response came on the same day Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa blasted the Salvadoran government for what he said was a coverup in the shooting death of union official Gilberto Soto.

"We received assurances that the Salvadoran government would conduct an objective, open-ended inquiry," Hoffa said. "That never happened."

Teamsters have long claimed that Soto, 49, was shot dead on Nov. 5, 2004, because of his efforts to organize truck drivers as part of a trip through Central America.

A month later, his mother-in-law, Rosa Elba Zelaya de Ortiz, was charged with hiring hit men to kill Soto because of a dispute between him and his estranged third wife.

But Zelaya de Ortiz and alleged gunman Santos Sanchez Ayala were acquitted Saturday night. Herbert Joel Gomez, who was charged with supplying the murder weapon, was convicted.

Embassy officials maintained they did everything to ensure Salvadoran police investigated all angles of the killing and were pleased with the results of their work.

"We had confidence in the investigation and the police and thought the right people were on trial," said Rebecca Thompson, an embassy spokeswoman in San Salvador. "We're still awaiting the sentencing. But in the end you have to respect the results of the judicial process, even if you're disappointed with the outcome."

Continued...

Good job Andy ya moron

2006-02-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Nurses from eight unions band together
By WILL LESTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Nurses from eight AFL-CIO unions are banding together in hopes of increasing their political and organizing strength, leaders announced Thursday.

The move foreshadows more coalitions within specific industries as organized labor attempts to regain clout.

About 200,000 nurses, describing themselves as RNs Working Together, are bidding to become the first union members to form such a group - called an industry coordinating committee - within the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO executive council will vote on recognizing the nurses' group during its winter meeting in San Diego next week.

"This is valuable because nurses are represented all over the country by many different unions, there's so much we need to do collectively that we're doing individually," said Kathy Sackman, president of the United Nurses Association of California. "This gives us a more powerful voice, gives us more clout politically."

After a difficult year that saw several large unions break away from the AFL-CIO, the labor federation is taking numerous steps to reinvigorate the labor movement.

On a separate front, leaders of the independent National Education Association, with 2.7 million members, and the AFL-CIO are discussing an arrangement that would allow local affiliates to join the labor federation, officials confirmed. The NEA would remain separate from the AFL-CIO at the national level, but local unions could apply for membership in central labor councils, which are active in local politics and organizing. Officials with the NEA and AFL-CIO plan to formally announce their plans early next week.

Continued...

P-CRAC Was On The Roof

2006-02-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Comrade-Enemies,

Loyal readers have whined and complained that we didn't update the last few days. P-CRAC was ill. Get over it.

Love,

P-CRAC