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IWW Directory Industrial Worker OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER oF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD INDUSTRIALNovember 2013 #1760 Vol. 110 No. 9 $2/ £2/ €2 WORKER A Response To In November We Re-Remembering The Worldwide IWA Patriarchy In The IWW Remember Every Mexican IWW Action Against 3 Wobbly Killed 6-7 8 Santander Bank 16 The Story And Struggle Of Starbucks Workers In Chile Interview by Adam Weaver Industrial Worker (IW): Could you During a week-long visit to Santiago describe the issues that motivated you to connect with social movement and to first start organizing? political organizations, I had the chance to meet with Andrés Giordano, the presi- Andrés Giordano (AG): Well, the dent of the Starbucks Workers Union in first main issue was that the company Chile. Organized as an independent union decided to lay off workers from every beginning in 2009, they have a supportive store. Starbucks decided that they had relationship with their U.S. counterparts too many workers for the operation. So, in the IWW’s Starbucks Workers Union. in my store, we went from being like On Sept. 22, I took the subway out to 25 partners to being 13 or 14, and that the middle-class suburbs of Santiago to caused a huge impact on the team. So we meet him at his store, which was where started to write complaints to the main the union effort began in 2009. Andrés office, through the human resources is currently a student, previously in pho- [HR] department. The company didn’t tography and now studying music, and take that too well and fired some of the has worked at his store for about eight people or took reprisals. Two partners years, with six years as a shift supervi- at my store and at least one other from sor. He was excited to tell the story of another store that did this got fired. So, their union, completely organized and we decided to seek legal protection and led by rank-and-file workers, as well as organized as a union. to discuss their current negotiations and I remember one of the biggest cases struggles. You can stay in touch with them was a partner named Andy Israel, who on Facebook at: http://www.facebook. had superb performance. He was going com/SindicatoStarbucksChile. Continued on 12 Starbucks Workers Union picket in July 2011. Photo: Juanita Galleguillos Droguett EurestBy Harald Stubbe Fires IWW Member In Frankfurt SexualBy Grace Parker Harassment In The Workplace Global catering company Eurest, My first major experience with sexual which is engaged in brutal human harassment at work occurred when I was resource management practices all 17 and working at a Mexican restaurant. around the world, and part of the One of the managers, a member of the British Compass Group, has fired family that owned the restaurant, put his our long-standing fellow worker hand down the back of my 16-year-old co- Anil Vermani. Anil was put on a worker’s pants. She and I confronted the plane from Kabul to Germany when head manager together, and he responded he was just 14. In Germany, he was by giving the offending manager two put into a youth center, then, at 18, weeks of paid leave. After two weeks, he he had to make his own way. He was back and still working the same shifts started as a kitchen hand at Eurest. A with the worker he’d assaulted. shy young man, he was bullied from We organized a march on the boss, the Eurest demo in January 2012. Photo: IWW Eurest the start, and only given the worst first I had ever done, and went back to the jobs. In 2006 he joined the IWW. His first protest emails to the managing director head manager with two more of our co- experience of fighting back was when he Jürgen Thamm. Then we sent letters to workers. We demanded that the offending took part in a demonstration outside the the workers’ representatives of many of manager be fired, but instead the head Commerzbank in solidarity with Eurest Eurest’s client companies. With the sup- manager changed my co-worker’s sched- workers in Cologne. He learned not to port of the IWW, Anil has contacted one ule so she wouldn’t have to work on the put up with everything. Meanwhile he got of the best lawyers in Frankfurt. same shift as the man who assaulted her. married and had two children. But all this is not enough. We need to While this was not a win in the least bit, it Now, Eurest fired him, the sole wage- continue to fight, globally, to give Eurest was still better than nothing. This was two Chi-Lake picket flyer. Graphic: Twin Cities IWW earner of his household, without giving and Compass Group a hard time, and in- years before I joined the IWW, and I was any reason. We won’t accept this inhu- form Eurest’s customers of the company’s clueless about building workers’ power were making some progress in talking to mane action. In September we organized inhumane labor practices! and making changes at work. I wish that I their co-workers, building relationships, had known then what I know now, because and agitating around issues at work. How- Industrial Worker Periodicals Postage we could have organized more around this ever, there was one problem: they were PO Box 180195 PAID issue and actually made some gains in a both men. The workforce at Chi-Lake was Chicago, IL 60618, USA Chicago, IL workplace where sexual harassment was incredibly gender segregated, with all of and additional the norm, not the exception. the cashiers being women and all of the ISSN 0019-8870 mailing offices Four years later, I found myself again stockers being men. ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED working in an environment where sexual This division of labor was based on harassment was something to be expected, two fucked-up ideas on the part of man- was “just part of the job,” and was written agement: one being that women can’t lift off as inevitable by bosses and workers heavy things, and the second being that alike. This time, however, was different. I staffing the cash registers with young, had gotten the job for the purpose of orga- attractive women will make men want to nizing, and was salting (getting a job with buy more booze. It also served to divide the intent of organizing) into the campaign the workforce in very powerful ways. Stock in its very early stages. guys had grievances that the cashiers The store was called Chicago-Lake Li- couldn’t identify with, and vice versa. quors (Chi-Lake), located in Minneapolis, It prevented cross-gender relationships and we would go on to do a series of actions from forming, and this was the issue that that would culminate in a mass firing of the two organizers were facing in trying five workers, including myself, in retali- to build a committee that was fully repre- ation for a march on the boss asking for sentative of the workplace. That’s where raises. At this point, however, there were I came in. only two IWW members in the shop. They Continued on 13 Page 2 • Industrial Worker • November 2013 “Comp Time” Is Bad For Workers To the Editor, quit about 30 years ago still owe me more days before the end of the year. Some jobs Do you know about the “Working than two full weeks each, which they never give seniority privileges for choosing vaca- Families Flexibility Act? Members of U.S. let me take off and would not pay for. This tions. Some places would let Jewish people Congress are trying to legalize “comp happened to all kinds of people I knew. If take a vacation day on a Jewish holiday time.” Comp time was declared unconsti- comp time becomes legal again, employers and ask non-Jewish staff to not take those tutional by the U.S. Supreme Court when that pay time-and-a-half for overtime can days off, for example. Comp time, in places Letters Welcome! Reagan was president. The Court said just promise time off in the future. This where I or my friends worked, never had Send your letters to: [email protected] with that it violated the anti-slavery amend- will mean that in the company’s busy sea- such customs or laws to enforce that the “Letter” in the subject. ment since it allowed employers to force son, people will work extra unpaid hours, time off. Lots of jobs give the day off for Mailing Address: people to work without getting paid. We and when and if the boss decides it, the Thanksgiving but there is no traditional Industrial Worker, P.O. Box 180195, never heard of unpaid “internships” in workers would get time off. This is similar comp day. That was something people said Chicago, IL 60618, United States. those days. Unpaid internships were il- to the situation in Poland, reported in the often as we complained about not getting legal as violations of the minimum wage IW recently, where the eight-hour work our comp time approved. It was always Get the Word Out! law. Comp time used to be very, very com- day will cease to exist soon. hard to get permission to take the time off, mon. It was a policy in which an employer All of a sudden at work you could be especially when the job was understaffed. IWW members, branches, job shops and would promise to give time off in the future told to take a break in the middle of a Comp time was bad and many of us other affiliated bodies can get the word instead of paying overtime or any extra shift.
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