Class War on the Waterfront: Longshore Workers Under Attack (tags)
ILWU Local 10 retired longshoreman Jack Heyman talks about technology and the danger of a proposed 8 year contract.
Houston Janitors Strike for Economic Justice (tags)
Echoing the story of David vs. Goliath, janitors in Houston are on strike and taking on such corporate giants as JPMorganChase and Exxon Mobile in an effort to pressure the janitorial companies they employ to agree to the workers' modest demands. It is these big business behemoths that are the real powers behind cleaning contractors such as ABM, GCA, ISS etc. By striking against these contractors, and publicly targeting these contractors' employers, the janitors are using their collective power in a showdown that has great significance for not only the Labor Movement but all workers.
The Taft-Hartley Act: ‘Neutrality’ as a weapon (tags)
All the new rules put into place by the act were directed against employees, despite the neutral-sounding language.
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (tags)
Following the nationally-coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful -- this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can't be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT's union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.
Hotel Workers Use Labor Day to Press Boycott of Hyatt Regency Santa Clara (tags)
Hotel service workers of the union Unite Here! Local 19 marked Labor Day by picketed the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, which has been the target of a boycott campaign launched by the union six months ago. Hyatt workers, who have been without a contract with the hotel, have been demanding recognition of the union through a card-check / neutrality agreement.
Union Busting in America (tags)
worker struggles
Dueling Strategies in the Defense of Public Education, Part 2 (tags)
In Part I of this essay we looked at strategies in defense of public education that are referred to as “ultra-left,” meaning that they veer so far left that they sever ties with the working class and consequently lose all traction when it comes to influencing the movement. Here we will examine strategies that veer to the right, often ending up in the camp of opportunism, which means sacrificing principles and working class independence for the sake of quick but illusory gains. The interests of working people are subordinated to those of the capitalist class and the politicians who represent them, be they Democrats or Republicans. Finally, we will return to the question of how to proceed forward.
targeting labor rights
Beware of opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act Union Busting Tactics and Lies (tags)
In recent weeks, you may have seen ads on TV or news releases or letters to the editor in your local newspaper bashing “big labor” and the Employee Free Choice Act.
Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war (tags)
This is called Walking the Talk. Please do all you can to publicize and support this effort.
For Workers Strikes Against the War! ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Against War (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.
ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan (tags)
In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!
A Slippery Slope?
Big Oil and the War on Drugs and Terrorism (tags)
The "Big Oil" chessgame, aided and abetted by the so-called wars on drugs and terrorism, has made most of humanity its pawns and has expanded corporate control over our lives.
Reviewing Michael Parenti's "Democracy For the Few" - by Stephen Lendman (tags)
America's democracy serves only the privileged.
Longshore Workers Honor Picket Line, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper in Oakland (tags)
This can be an important first step toward the mobilization of workers power to shut down the war machine, but that requires a sharp struggle against the bourgeois politics of the antiwar groups and union officialdom. The OEA calls for money for schools not for war, as if it were a matter of budget priorities, and the PAC poster made a social-patriotic pitch to “Bring the Troops Home Now, and give them the care they need.” Such “peace is patriotic” rhetoric is a staple of the UPFJ, but all the antiwar coalitions make similar appeals to garner support from Democratic Party liberals. Revolutionaries and class-conscious workers, in contrast, emphasize that this imperialist war must be opposed by class war.
Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives? (tags)
Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery she voted for in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors.
Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives? (tags)
Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery she voted for in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors.
COMMENTS ON DAVID SIROTA'S NEW BOOK - HOSTILE TAKEOVER (tags)
Sirota shows how corporate cash corrupts government at all levels
Why you should vote for Nader/Camejo! (tags)
[V]oting for Kerry doesn’t necessarily mean voting against Bush’s policies. All that Kerry has said so far shows that the goals of his presidency would look a lot like the Bush administration’s.
Building Bridges Radio-Reagan the Liberal and I.W.W. vs Starbucks (tags)
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 28 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON LA INDYMEDIA AUDIO LINK
The Democratic Party is not a vehicle for ending corporate control of our lives. It is an obstacle to building a new society.
just something i got off the ralp nader for 2004 website
The Bush Outrage(s) of the Month list (tags)
(see related story below) As part of its campaign to put a four-year limit on George W. Bush’s tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the AFL-CIO has drawn up what might be called the “Outrage of the Month” list of attacks against working people by the Bush administration since taking office in January 2001.
The ILWU From Bridges to Spinosa (tags)
Great article on the dockworkers
Muslim Public Affairs Council's Profiles of California Candidates (tags)
MPAC cannot endorse candidates, but it will provide a profile of the candidates running for constitutional offices in the state of California. The profiles include races for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and Superintendent for Public Instruction. MPAC analysts took a close look on the candidates' stands on civil liberties, education, homelessness, and labor:
National security, or war on workers? (tags)
OAKLAND, Calif. – Like many Filipinos living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Erlinda Valencia found a job at the airport, screening carry-on bags for passengers. She worked for Argenbright Security for 14 years, most of that time at a minimum-wage job, barely able to support her family.
Bush rewards bosses, invokes Taft-Hartley (tags)
LOS ANGELES – The labor movement reacted with outrage to George W. Bush’s decision to invoke the unionbusting Taft-Hartley Act to end an employer lockout of the West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). It was the first use of the law against the union since Richard Nixon invoked it in 1971 to interrupt a strike.
SMASH THE SLAVE LABOR INJUNCTION! (tags)
Bush is going to court seeking an injunction ordering the West Coast longshoremen back to work, invoking the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act. This law was written by ultra-right Republican Robert Taft, passed as part of the post-WW2 reaction, and is THE main union-busting tool of the capitalist state. The last time a President tried to invoke was Jimmy Carter in 1978, and he failed. Let's make sure Bush fails this time, too. For a general political strike to smash the slave labor injunction and stop the war with Iraq!
LA TIMES on ILWU with short update (tags)
Below is yesterday's LA times on ILWU possible lockout by the bosses. NYT reports today the lockout is averted
Bush visit to Portland, an invitation (tags)
ILWU Local 5 resolution regarding the upcoming Bush visit to Portland, OR>
ILWU faces historic moment for Union and Nation (tags)
ILWU faces historic moment for Union and Nation. story from portland indymedia.
Labor solidarity backs West Coast dockers (tags)
OAKLAND – Leaders of unions representing transport workers from around the world locked arms at a Solidarity Day rally here on June 27 in support of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The ILWU is in the battle of its life, faced with a threatened lockout by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) – and the danger that President Bush will invoke the Taft-Hartley Act in the event of a strike or slowdown.
Strikers as Terrorists? (tags)
June 27, 2002 A CounterPunch Exclusive Strikers as Terrorists? Ridge Calls Longshoremen's Chief by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
Homeland Security & Union Busting (tags)
In a CounterPunch exclusive, Alexander Cockburn shows how the Bush Administration's phony and fascist "War on Terrorism" is being waged against decent working people here at home.
Rally Thursday noon in Wilmington, CA to show support for the ILWU longshore workers.
Green Candidate For Upcoming Congressional Race (tags)
Congressman Julian Dixon Dies-Green Party Activist Donna Warren announces she is running for the 32 Congressional District Seat! Go Donna!!!
Pro-democracy affinity groups and individuals are reassembling throughout Philadelphia, North America and the world for a caravan across America to protest and challenge D2K (that other Republicratic convention).