Wiki War

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

Newscast

Not yet Broken News

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?

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

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

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.../A>

Zombies Hate Workers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spare the Rod, spoil the...

S.D. grand jury indicts Earth Liberation Front leader
Union-Tribune

A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday in San Diego charges a recognized national leader of the Earth Liberation Front with teaching others how to make a bomb with the intent that it be used to commit arson.

Rodney Adam Coronado, who was arrested today in Arizona, is charged with teaching and demonstrating the making of a destructive device before dozens of people in Hillcrest on Aug. 1, 2003.

Coronado is not charged with setting a fire 15 hours earlier that caused $50 million in damages and destroyed a large apartment complex under construction in the University Towne Center area of San Diego, prosecutors said.

"America will not tolerate terrorists," said Daniel R. Dzwilewski, special agent in charge of the San Diego division of the FBI. "Whether you were born here or abroad, we will not stand back and allow you to terrorize our communities under the guise of free speech."

Coronado, 39, is scheduled to be arraigned in Tucson on Thursday and could be brought to San Diego within the next couple of weeks, said Shane Harrigan, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego.

He faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison if convicted, according to Harrigan, who said a federal grand jury in San Diego returned the one-count indictment last week.

Continued...

This guy should be beaten to death with a shoe

Is it time for unions to go?
By Richard Berman
Washington Examiner

Publicity is a lot like warfare-it is always sound strategy to occupy and hold the high ground at any cost. Union leaders have been doing just that for decades now. By rhetorically positioning themselves at the forefront of struggles for economic justice and equality, they have effectively inoculated themselves against criticism. To criticize labor leaders, even from a pro-labor standpoint, is to side against the angels. Worse-in a democracy like ours-it is to side against the people. It is to back big business, often depicted in this case as a rapacious, plutocratic caricature straight out of Upton Sinclair's worst nightmares.

By consistently claiming the moral high ground for themselves, union leaders have acquired a kind of diplomatic immunity in the public eye. According to Gallup, the public favors unions over businesses 52 percent to 34 percent in labor disputes and a majority of people still believe that unions help the businesses they organize.

The facts tell a different story. Union leaders have fallen prey to what might be called the "Godfather syndrome." Almost everyone knows the story of Michael Corleone's rise to power (and fall from grace). But most significant was the fact that he began as an idealist using increasingly unsavory methods to do what he considered good and necessary. Eventually those ideals vanished, leaving only the pursuit of power and little trace of the man he once was.

This is hardly an uncommon story in public life; indeed, it is almost expected of politicians in this cynical day and age. But we assume for some reason that union leaders are exempt from the rule that power corrupts.

Their profligacy, however, should not come as a surprise. For, union leaders have greater power than most comparable figures. Politicians and lawmakers are held accountable by voters. Major companies and their managers are responsible to shareholders. To whom do union leaders answer? In theory, the democratic process should make them accountable to their membership. But that process is under serious attack.

Where once a secret ballot vote was used to establish and determine the direction of unions, organizers have now resorted to card checks, which essentially amounts to collecting names on a petition. This method is public and leaves participants open to harassment and intimidation, not to mention the room it creates for false signatures and fraudulent voting outcomes.

Continued...

All out offensive

Hub radio stations to air anti-union ads
By Diane E. Lewis
Boston Globe

An anti-union group says it will start airing ads this week on three Boston radio stations as part of a media blitz against the US labor movement and its push to change the way most workers are organized.

''Union members are tired of the corruption and huge salary packages for union chiefs . . . and sick of being forced to pay union dues that end up in the pockets of politicians they don't agree with," according to the ads, which the Center for Union Facts says will begin airing as early as today on three Boston radio stations.

The campaign started earlier this month with full-page newspaper ads in the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times. The organization also launched an Internet website, UnionFacts.com, and erected a large dinosaur outside the headquarters of the AFL-CIO.

Richard Berman, 62, director of the Center for Union Facts in Washington, D.C., said he launched the site himself, and then sought financial support from firms for the media effort. Berman declined to identify his backers. He said the media campaign will cost about $5 million.

Berman said he was inspired to speak out against unions after he noticed that labor had stepped up its promotion of card-check recognition as a way of organizing new members. The strategy allows unions to circumvent the time-consuming process of a National Labor Relations Board election. In a card-check campaign, the union seeks a pledge of neutrality from the employer and a promise to recognize a bargaining unit after more than 50 percent of a workforce signs union cards.

''They want to force people to join unions," Berman said in a telephone interview. ''They are going to corporations and intimidating them into being neutral."

Continued...

Government oversight screws workers? Shocking!

Unions seek end to Act 47 oversight of city
By Rich Lord
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Labor leaders launched a multipronged assault on state oversight of the city of Pittsburgh yesterday, asking City Council to call for its end, backing a state bill to curb its effects and attacking its key privatization initiative.

But council postponed for three weeks a vote on a union-backed bill asking to end oversight under state Act 47. Its sponsor, Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle, said she wanted to give Mayor Bob O'Connor "the benefit of the doubt" while he rewrites the 2006 budget.

Only the state secretary of community and economic development can end oversight, though city officials can request that action.

Mr. O'Connor has been lukewarm to ending oversight, which started in 2003 and gives the city a means of limiting union contracts.

Ms. Carlisle said her bill was "not just for one group of people, but to make the city whole," and pledged to work with the mayor to modify it.

International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1 President Joe King told council that the city no longer needs oversight, since it announced last week that it brought in $15 million more than it spent in 2005. Some officials have questioned that figure, but Mr. King said they have not presented an alternative number.

"My group, especially, has taken a tremendous amount, the bulk, of the hit," he said. The Fire Bureau budget has been cut from $60.4 million in 2004 to $43 million this year.

The firefighters' contract runs through 2009, but can be changed next year.

"We want the right to bargain with our employers on a level playing field," he said.

Continued...

Students are boring

Student labor group renews call for higher wages at unions
Andrew Peck
The Daily Cardinal

A proposed referendum by the Student Labor Action Coalition would require Memorial Union and several other UW-Madison organizations to either pay employees a higher wage or lose funding.

The Union also provided a plan last week to deal with the issue of compensation for limited-term employees, who do not receive benefits, but it may not do enough, according to SLAC representative Josh Healey.

“The Union’s policy is about giving limited-term employees full-term employment, which is very important, but it doesn’t necessarily say anything about all workers having a living wage, so it doesn’t affect students,” Healey said.

However, he acknowledged that “what the Union is doing doesn’t contradict what we’re doing; our initiative should compliment, not add to what they’re doing.”

But Michael Imbrogno, a representative of Local Union 171 and employee of Memorial Union, remains skeptical of the Union’s plan. “We’ve heard this song and dance before,” he said, “and I don’t believe it until it actually happens.”

Shayna Hetzel, vice president of external relations for the Wisconsin Union said the Union is neither for, nor against the proposal.

“If it passes, we’d work with the University and other auxiliaries to find a way to implement it,” Hetzel said.

Continued...

Love the WSM, but rhetoric is moronic... as is debating with Marxists

What type of society do anarchists want to live in?

Text of a WSM part of Marxism v Anarchism debate organised by the (Irish) Socialist Party / CWI

Anarchism essentially sees a free society where everybody has the opportunity to live as they want as achievable. But what does that mean in practice, and how do we get there.

The first thing about a revolution is that it must result in an expansion of freedom and not a new set of rulers.

Popular revolt got rid of the dictatorships in Stalinist Europe, recently in Georgia, Serbia, and Indonesia. All these states were police states and yet they fell, which goes to show the power that workers have when they get going.

While in these cases workers knew perfectly well what they didn't want, i.e. the old rulers, but putting something new in their place was a different story. They put in different rulers instead of a different political system with the result that the same old patterns of exploitation continued.

We have got to try the road of freedom.

And being bossed about isn't something that people are willing to fight for. This discussion is based on the premise of a post-revolutionary society, one that is under threat, presumably, of counter-revolution. Well, if the people don't think the new life is better than the old one, they won't lift a finger to defend it. And that will be the end of that.

So that means freedom in the most general sense is an absolute necessity; no secret police, political courts, to the freedom to participate in making decisions that affect you. And of course, as socialists, for this freedom to have any meaning, people need to have enough food in their bellies.

Freedom in Revolution
Freedom of speech & organisation
It is vital in a revolutionary situation that freedom of organisation is available to all political strands.

When it comes to advancing one's political ideas on how society should be organised this freedom needs to be available to all. And not just because it is a nice thing but also because it is useful. Anarchists believe that the best decisions are made after a debate that has the opportunity to hear all sides. If one political faction institutes itself as the thought police of the population then the population won't be able to hear all the arguments for particular policies. Useful options will inevitably become excluded from the mix.


What do anarchists mean by revolution?
Forerunner to the revolution
We don't see a libertarian revolution coming out of nowhere. The example of Spain is instructive. There was a long build up to the revolution, probably the high point of workers' self-management in history. It was was preceded by 70 years of militant activity. Workers learned how to run society through self-organisation and direct action.

Obvious things that come with revolution

Overthrow of the capitalist regime: mass occupations, militias, dismantling of the state apparatus.
Mass involvement in running society
Take the wealth of the rich and redistribute it.
Start producing things with need in mind.
Start thinking about our impact on Earth and factoring this in to the cost of production.
Getting rid of the system of leaders and led in work and in society. That is, changing the social relationship involved in production.
An end to invading and pillaging weaker nation

Continued...

IWW uses innovative organizing tactic by announcing Summit without also announcing when it will be. Brilliant!

IWW Organizing Summit 2006

"By building organizations based on solidarity, rather than on bureaucratic chain-of-command, we build organizations that by their very existence help to bring a new kind of society into being." --Staughton Lynd, Solidarity Unionism

For the first time in recent memory wobblies from all over will be meeting with the primary objective of discussing organizing. The Organizing Summit is what many wobs have been wanting for years. It is a chance to focus on organizing in the union and what it means to say, "Every member is an organizer."

The weekend will be hosted by the Austin GMB and was proposed at General Assembly 2005 in the hopes of supporting the work of the Organizing Department Formation Committee (ODFC). The assembly endorsed the Summit and the ODFC has also endorsed the meeting.

As proposed by the Austin GMB, the weekend will have four goals:

* organizing workshops
* organizing discussions and presentations
* the state of organizing in the union
* discussion of the preliminary report of the ODFC

Attendees must be in good standing in the IWW. Presenters in some cases will not be required to be IWWs.