Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝In the annals of "complying in advance", the US-Canada part of the #IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) is doing a paperwork attack on the part of itself that organizes prisoners. The stated reasons are a jumble of concerns about proper receipts, with some part of leadership stating that good recordkeeping will make the union less of a target for fascists. But mostly it's that union leadership doesn't like prisoner organization or really anything that people look to the IWW for.
With Trump newly sending people to prison, this makes the #IWW not as bad as the Teamsters, but not as good as a generic large mainstream union. It's the same form of respectability politics -- "the IWW is for classic union activities (i.e. organizing a few small shops) and nothing else" that helped the IWW anti-fascist GDC flame out so spectacularly in Trump's first term.
Peter Rileyhttps://www.onebigunion.ie/post/that-s-entertainment-musicians-urged-to-unionise
#Derry #entertainmentworkers #labormovement #Musicians #Organize #solidarity #unions #iww
That's Entertainment: Musicians urged to Unionise
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union in Derry has said today that "Only a union will guarantee workers rights such as quality of pay and safe working conditions for musicians, not council database."The statement comes as Derry City and Strabane District Council announced an open call for musicians to register for inclusion in a new database.A representative of the IWW stated following today's announcement that "We urge musicians to organise to ensure they are not taken advantage of, n
MikeDunnAuthorToday in Labor History April 14, 1917: IWW sailors went on strike in Philadelphia and won a ten dollar per month raise. Ben Fletcher, an African-American IWW organizer, was instrumental in organizing the Philadelphia waterfront. Fletcher was born in Philly in 1890. He joined the Wobblies (IWW) in 1912, became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913.
In 1913, Fletcher led 10,000 IWW Philly dockworkers on a strike. Within two weeks, they won a 10-hr day, overtime pay, & created one of the most successful antiracist, anticapitalist union locals in the U.S. At the time, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.
By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the union maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color.
Fletcher also traveled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. And in 1918, the state arrested him, sentencing him to ten years for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years.
You can read my full biography of Ben Fletcher here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #benfletcher #racism #africanamerican #philadelphia #longshore #lynching #BlackMastadon
Today in Labor History April 13, 1894: The Great Northern rail strike began in Helena, Montana. It quickly spread to St. Paul. The strike was led Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union. Workers succeeded in shutting down most of the critical rail links. Consequently, the owners gave in to nearly all of the union’s demands. The successful strike led to thousands of rail workers joining the new union. Debs would go on to lead numerous other strikes, run for president of the U.S. several times, including from his prison cell, and to cofound the revolutionary union IWW, along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Lucy Parsons, and others.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #eugenedebs #railroad #solidarity #potus #IWW #motherjones #lucyparsons #bigbillhaywood
Alice Dubiel 🔬💉🦠😷🌬☮️We’re discussing Mr. Block today. More relevant than ever.
#mrblock #iww
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Block?wprov=sfti1
#mrblock #iww
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Block?wprov=sfti1
"No Union For Fascists": Why The Sioux Falls AFL-CIO Banned White Supremacists
Editors Note: In May of 2018 the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO passed several amendments to thier Constitution. Among those changes were the words," No individual shall be eligible to serve as an Officer, member of The Executive Board or Committee, or other governing body, or any committee of, or as a delegate from, or as a representative, agent, or employee of this body who is a member of any Fascist or White Supremacist organization. Or who consistently pursues policies and/or activites directed toward the purposes of any Fascist or otherwise White Supremacist Ideology."
Tacoma IWW📢 join the Tacoma IWW branch next Thursday April 17th at 12:30pm at Freighthouse Square (in food court), to eat some food, hang out and see what we've been up to. All are welcome.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#tacomaiww #iww #solidarityforever #industrialworkersoftheworld
#industrialunionism #aninjurytooneisaninjurytoall
#solidarityunionism #industrialworker #wobradio #wobblies #onebigunion
#abolitionofthewagesystem
Today in Labor History April 10, 1997: Exotic dancers at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady, ratified their first-ever union contract. Thus they became the first successfully unionized sex business. (Pacers, in San Diego, had unionized a few years earlier. However, they had an open shop, allowing management to recruit new, non-union employees. Consequently, they were able to decertify the union.) Lusty Lady later became a worker-owned cooperative and a member of NoBAWC (the network of Bay Area Workers Collectives), a program initiated by the Bay Area IWW.
For a great book on the struggle to organize Lusty Lady, please see Jenny Worley’s “Neon Girls: A Stripper’s Education in Protest and Power.”
#workingclass #LaborHistory #WorkerCollective #union #NOBAWC #LustyLady #books #author #writer #IWW @bookstadon
