Industrial Workers of the World from the 36Th and Madison Store August Charles Fostrom, and Evan Winterscheidt
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A new model for building Growing workers’ rebellion international solidarity? knows no borders Zapatistas call for grassroots, Bosses, who needs them? nonelectoral movement of Chinese, South Korean & Serbian communities in resistance 4-5 workers seize workplaces 12 Starbucks fires 3 IWWs Industrial for union organizing In its latest effort to crush the growth England. David Bleakney, a national represen- of the Starbucks Workers Union, Starbucks tative of the 55,000-member Canadian Union has fired three IWW members as part of of Postal Workers, has written CEO Howard a stepped-up campaign of intimidation of Schultz, demanding the reinstatement of the union supporters. three fires workers and warning that if he does Charles Fostrom, a worker at New York’s not receive a satisfactory reply by August 17 57th & Lexington Starbucks, was fired July he will write all CUPW locals to inform them Worker 11 was fired for “insubordination” after he of the situation. refused illegal orders to work off the clock. On July 29, Starbucks workers, other Evan Winterscheidt, a two-year veteran at the IWW members, and supporters from Make 14th & 6th Avenue Starbucks, was fired July The Road By Walking, CODA and NMASS 18 after a minor dispute with a coworker. picketed in support of fired workers Joe Agins OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE IWW organizer Daniel Gross was fired Jr. (fired some months ago for union activity), INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD from the 36th and Madison store August Charles Fostrom, and Evan Winterscheidt. 5 for urging district manager Allison Marx Organizing continues despite the firings. September 2006 #1686 Vol. 103 No. 8 $1.00 / 75 p not to fire FW Winterscheidt and joining An organizing committee went public at an informational picket line called to pro- the 17th and Broadway Union Square West test the earlier firings. To provide cover for Starbucks the day of the picket, and several Gross’ termination, Starbucks also issued an members started wearing IWW pins. The The General Strike unsatisfactory performance review on the IWW is already established at the Union B Y S ta UG htO N LY N D 5th, marking him down for things like “not Square East Starbucks across the park, and the FW Lynd was keynote speaker at the Min- communicating partner morale issues to the fellow workers at the USW store have been neapolis regional IWW gathering July 15: Store Manager.” The store manager confirmed subjected to a steady stream of anti-union Ask any Wobbly how he or she proposes that morale issues included complaints intimidation and abuse. to bring about the Big Change in which we about wages and working conditions. Good Since May 2004, workers at several Star- all believe, and they are likely to respond: unionists do not engage in surveillance of bucks stores have joined the IWW Starbucks by a general strike, of course. co-worker’s protected activities. Workers Union. The company has been con- But what is a general strike? And how Already, Starbucks’ union-busting has sistently intimidating, harassing and violating does a general strike come about? drawn international condemnation. Hundreds the rights of workers who unite to address The IWW Preamble does not use the words “general strike,” but gives us a place to of workers have emailed and telephoned the their workplace issues, and was previously begin. It says that an organization must be “formed in such a way that all its members in company to protest the firings. In Austria, forced to settle unfair labor practice charges any one industry, or all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout the Allegemeines Syndikat Wien has leafleted stemming from its harassment of union sup- is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.” all seven Starbucks coffee shops in Vienna. porters at three New York City stores and In the same historical moment that radicals in this country were creating the IWW Similar actions are underway in Cologne reinstate IWW member Sarah Bender. with its Preamble, Rosa Luxemburg threw herself into the Russian Revolution of 1905 and Frankfurt, Germany, and in Leicester, (See photos and resolution page 9) and then wrote her pamphlet, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions. Therein she said that political parties and trade unions could not decree a general strike, which must boil up from below in a multiplicity of improvised actions; that workers who were not in trade unions might play a more important role than workers who were 8 million U.S. workers “organized”; that workers would improvise the institutions they needed in the moment of crisis as in Russia they had created local central labor bodies called “soviets.” She was at particular pains to stress that the seemingly anarchistic, chaotic actions of the 1905 may lose union rights general strike had produced tangible gains in working-class life throughout Russia. This The National Labor Relations Board will instructions to co-workers about how and pamphlet is available in English translation in a book edited by Mary-Alice Waters of soon decide three cases, known collectively when to perform certain tasks, are particular- the Socialist Workers Party. I urge you to read it. as the Kentucky River cases, which could be ly vulnerable to reclassification as supervisors There is a rich current of historical experience in the United States. The closest a major step in stripping U.S. workers of their under this push for a broader reinterpretation. thing to a national general strike ever experienced in this country took place before legal right to organize unions. Employers in For example, nurses who tell orderlies or the IWW came into existence. Local general strikes have occurred in abundance: most these cases are pressing the Board to signifi- nurse aides to do certain things for particular obviously in one-industry communities like Lawrence, Massachusetts, or the state of cantly broaden the definition of “supervisor,” patients are at high risk of reclassification, as West Virginia, and also in Seattle after World War I, in Minneapolis, San Francisco and potentially stripping millions of workers of are journeymen construction workers who Toledo in 1934, in Oakland and elsewhere after World War II. the right to form unions or engage in collec- guide other workers on a crew. But even Right now in the United States, workers for Delphi Packard calling themselves tive bargaining. workers who because of greater experience Soldiers Of Solidarity advocate work-to-rule campaigns in the workplace and a general The National Labor Relations Act ex- have been designated to train co-workers or strike to resist proposed cuts in wages and retirement benefits. My friend Tony Budak, cludes “supervisors” from the definition of help organize the work could be classified a Delphi retiree whom you may remember from the centennial gathering in Chicago, “employees” who have the legal right to en- as supervisors if the Republican-dominated told our local newspaper: “Work-to-rule is when workers follow the precise letter of the gage in union activity. Now the Board is ruling Board accepts the employers’ position. contract, something that can slow production when health, safety and other contract on three cases – Oakwood Healthcare, Golden The Economic Policy Institute estimates provisions are strictly followed.” Crest Healthcare Center, and Croft Metals that some 1.4 million workers (most nurses) But if workers do that, Budak said, the company could lock them out of the plant – in which employers sought to exclude from could quickly be reclassified as supervisors and use replacement workers and security guards. He said workers may have to sit down union representation registered and licensed and stripped of their union rights if the Board in the plant to prevent that from happening, as auto workers did in forming the UAW practical nurses who acted as “charge” nurses, finds for the employers in these cases. If such in the late 1930s. General Strike: continued page 6 essentially coordinating which nurses handle a definition was expanded to the broader which patients, and “leadmen” and “load economy, as many as 8 million workers in the British Wobs Honor Labor Struggles 3 Sweatshop Baseball Protested 5 supervisors” in a manufacturing facility. building and construction, broadcast, energy, Boycotting Coors 8 Kurdish Strikers Killed in Iraq 9 The Internationale 10 The Board is using the cases, which have shipping, accounting and health care indus- been lingering for years, to reconsider its tries could lose the legal right to join a union, Industrial Worker Periodicals Postage position that workers must exercise “inde- nearly doubling the number of “supervisors” PO Box 13476 PAID pendent judgment” in directing the work of presently excluded from the NLRA. Philadelphia, PA 19101 Philadelphia, PA other employees to be considered a supervi- Given the recent packing of the Board ISSN 0019-8870 and additional sor. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court over- with management attorneys, unions fear the mailing offices turned the NLRB’s independent judgment Board will seize the opportunity to rewrite ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED test in Kentucky River, saying the Board had decades of precedent. Unions organized pro- misinterpreted the law. test rallies at NLRB offices across the country The current cases all involve whether in July to criticize the Board’s refusal to hear such workers can be classified as supervisors oral arguments from attorneys before reach- and thus excluded from NLRA protections ing its decision. and participation in collective bargaining be- The Board has been steadily stripping cause they “responsibly direct other employ- workers of long-established protections, ees” even though they do not have authority including recent cases allowing hospital ad- to hire, fire, discipline, evaluate or promote ministrators to prohibit nurses from wearing the employees they supposedly supervise.