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Harvard Workers Got the Cold Shoulder This Winter by Geoffrey P

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Harvard Workers Got the Cold Shoulder This Winter by Geoffrey P OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER oF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD Happy May Day Fellow Workers! INDUSTRIALMay 2015 #1774 Vol. 112 No. 4 $2/ £2/ €2 WORKER Camp Counselors Of How To Be A Life-Long Review: Elizabeth Strikes, Worker The World Unite! Wobbly: Six Tips Gurley Flynn, Modern Revolts Worldwide 3 6-7 Revolutionary 10 16 Harvard Workers Got The Cold Shoulder This Winter By Geoffrey P. Carens would encourage you not to be.” During what the New York Times Members of the Harvard Union of called a “Winter from Hell,” four bliz- Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) zards dumped record amounts of snow were required to use vacation or personal on the Harvard University campus in the days at times when they feared their com- three weeks between Jan. 27 and Feb. 15. mute to work, such as was the case on Jan. True to form, Harvard closed due to the 28. Parents faced particularly troubling inclement weather fewer times than other choices when their childrens’ schools local universities. Harvard remained open closed, yet they were expected to work on a number of days when it was unsafe their regular hours. One union member or impossible for many employees to get commented, “I’ve lost all my personal and to work. For example, the university was vacation time. Now I have no extra time...I open on Jan. 28, when Boston had a park- don’t think I should lose my earned time ing ban that wasn’t lifted until 5 p.m., Bos- because I have to make a decision about ton’s public schools were closed, and plow my safety and health.” Last year, a group drivers were reporting close calls with of HUCTW members filed a grievance residents who were walking in the streets because they did not receive paid time off (due to sidewalks not being shoveled, etc.). during a severe storm in February, but Television station WCVB reported that were made to report to work or use vaca- Governor Charlie Baker stated on Jan. tion or other benefit time, despite what Wobblies protest discriminatory layoffs at Harvard Photo: Geoffrey P. Carens 27: “Unless you have a reason to be out the HUCTW contract says, that “When a University in January 2013. tonight or tomorrow after midnight, we Continued on 13 May Day: Remembering Our Past, Looking Toward The Future By Staughton Lynd radical grouplets. But they celebrated Somehow the IWW has done well in May Day together: “In the spring of 1936, its ceremonial calendar. On May 1 it of- my father joined the Italian chorus on the fers its own version of the universal spring stage of the Venetian Hall in Kensington.” festival. The typically gloomy weather in They sang, in Italian: November is the occasion for “In Novem- “Come, oh May Day; ber We Remember.” The mood resembles the people await you, that of the Latin American “Day Of The The liberated hearts salute you, Dead,” held in the same season. Sweet Easter of the working class.” There are two May Day happenings That same day in 1936, I was part of that I have written about and ask the a gigantic May Day parade in New York indulgence of readers to recall with me. City. One of my mother’s students had When Alice and I interviewed older a brother named Sam Levinger who car- workers for our first book of oral history, ried me on his shoulders. Soon after, Sam “Rank and File”(Haymarket Books has joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and published an expanded fourth edition), went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil Mario Manzardo was a favorite of mine. War. In September 1937 Sam Levinger was His family came from Italy. His grandfa- mortally wounded at the Battle of Belchite. ther was one of Garibaldi’s “thousand.” Many years later Sam’s niece, Laurie Mario remembered that, “As an old man Levinger, discovered letters from her uncle he’d sit in front of his door, in his chair, to his parents and to Sam’s sweetheart. wearing his red Garibaldi shirt.” The old On the basis of the letters and the memo- Graphic: pkro.org man “wouldn’t take his shirt off—he was ries of veterans of the Spanish Civil War When Sam Levinger had twice been As Stephen Spender says in his poem so proud of it.” she has written a biography, “Love and wounded, the rules of the Brigade required about those like Sam Levinger, he “left Mario told us that like all Left move- Revolutionary Greetings: An Ohio Boy in that he return to the United States and do the vivid air signed with his honor.” The ments the Italian immigrants in South the Spanish Civil War” (Resource Publica- support work. Instead he slipped out of heart-breaking picture of Sam on the cover Chicago were divided into a variety of tions, Eugene, Ore.). the hospital and went back to the front. is worth the price of the book. Industrial Worker Periodicals Postage PO Box 180195 PAID NYC IWW: Beverage Plus, Pay Up! Chicago, IL 60618, USA Chicago, IL From Wobbly City and additional Several former workers at ISSN 0019-8870 mailing offices Beverage Plus and their sup- ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED porters visited the company in Maspeth, Queens in early April to demand that the owner Yun Cho pay the more than $1.2 million owed to the workers from a wage theft lawsuit. Cho was present but did not come Photo: wobblycity.org out to talk to the workers who then left a The workers are still seeking the payments letter demanding payment. The company, in court but have also called upon support- which has also operated under the names ers to join their campaign to get the money YS Beverage and Grand Beverage, is a dis- owed to them. The workers have been long tributor in New York City (handling prod- time members of the Brandworkers and the ucts such as Coca Cola and Poland Spring IWW campaign to organize and improve beverages. In 2012, the company was found conditions in New York City’s food produc- liable for multiple violations of the Fair tion and distribution sector. Labor Standards Act for unpaid minimum Stay tuned for more actions in support wage and overtime for dozens of workers. of the Beverage Plus workers! Page 2 • Industrial Worker • May 2015 Fellow Workers: Regarding Patriarchy In The IWW Dear Editors, Readers and (the same type Fellow Workers: of college boys Boycott Xfinity The facts reported in “Fighting Patri- who were strike- Greetings fellow workers, archy In The One Big Union” (September breakers in the I recently wrote a letter to the Indus- 2014 Industrial Worker, page 3) and Bread and Ros- Letters Welcome! trial Worker calling for a boycott of Xfinity “How We Struggle: A Response to Ongoing es strike, as is Comcast for their treatment of the network Patriarchal Violence In The IWW” (No- seen in that fa- Send your letters to: [email protected] with Estrella TV. In writing my original letter “Letter” in the subject. vember 2013 Industrial Worker, page 3) mous picture of I mistakenly believed and claimed that are shocking, but not totally surprising. It them on horse- Mailing Address: Xfinity had completely shut down Estrella seems that those sexually predatory men, back confronting Industrial Worker, P.O. Box 180195, TV, and therefore left its employees job- including “serial rapists,” deliberately strikers). Women Chicago, IL 60618, United States. less, which was not the case. What Xfinity chose political and religious groups to must be trained in Graphic: wikimedia.org Comcast did do, however, was eliminate infiltrate, where the members are very un- self-defense. And Get the Word Out! Estrella TV as an available network on likely to use the prevailing legal system to able-bodied men who are not predatory its service. In an attempt to stifle the im- IWW members, branches, job shops and redress these outrages—although the legal should be chivalrous. I say this without migration reform, Xfinity Comcast has other affiliated bodies can get the word system (and other establishment powers intending to fall into gender stereotyping. extinguished the voice of Estrella TV on out about their project, event, campaign such as college administrators), including I stress again that I believe that these its service. or protest each month in the Industrial police, courts and social services, often re- predators are not indigenous to the IWW I still stand solidly against Xfinity Worker. Send announcements to iw@ victimize the victims. There has also been and anarchist movements, but rather that Comcast and its anti-worker and racist iww.org. Much appreciated donations for predator infiltration in anarchist and other predators choose political and religious actions and reaffirm my call for a boycott the following sizes should be sent to: Leftist groups. groups where they believe they will have of the channel and its services. It is not only that these things, such immunity. Some may also be hoping to IWW GHQ, Post Office Box 180195, as sexual abuse, should not happen in destroy the IWW. Don’t let them. Some In solidarity, Chicago, IL 60618, United States. the IWW—it should not be possible in the may be provocateurs or creative agent Edgar Arturo Sazo #1671069 IWW! This is the type of thing that I know provocateurs. $12 for 1” tall, 1 column wide Gib Lewis Unit is done on college campuses by rich white $40 for 4” by 2 columns 777 fM 3497 college boys, to both female and male Yours for the One Big Union, $90 for a quarter page Woodville, TX 75990 victims, who are perceived as vulnerable Saul B.
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