2018: The largest union of Germany announced an escalation of pressure tactics to week 28 hours.

While in North America, the majority of unions waging a public relations campaign and lobbying for a minimum wage 15$ /h, if possible before the cost of living exceeds the 20$ /h, German steelworkers union announced an escalation of pressure tactics to week 28 hours.

In negotiating for several months with employers, IG Metall Union had pledged not to launch any strike 31 December. The deadline has now been exceeded and employers who have shown no sign of openness concrete, the Union is about to get tough and to attack.

"Employers are best to prepare for strikes announced at the last minute if they do not change their attitude. If at the end of January they still have not changed their position, we will ConSideRst strikes 24 hours and call a general strike vote » – dit Joerg Hofmann, President of the IG Metall Union.

The industrial union requires not only wage increase 6%, more, more, reducing the work week 7 hours and without major pay cut. Recall that if the use of GrevE is rare in Germany, l’IG Metall Union, which represents 3.1 million account adhérent.es among its greatest victories of the week 5 days (1959) and the reduction of working time 40 hours (1967), then 35 hours (1995).

While economists released their usual spiel in suddenly to the defense of small and medium enterprises and speaking of a European economy that is not at its best, the union said that it was high time that the flexibility of working hours continues to serve only the employers and began to be used to improve the lives of working men and women. Greater control of schedule, greater determination and greater control over their lives, this is what the demand syndiqué.es the IG Metall Union.

 

Mathieu Stakh

 

 

Photo credit: http://www.industryweek.com
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The hippies were right about one thing

A cry of agony.

The child's crying.

The heavy silence.

The comrades of the guerrillas watch successively, seven others who fight in the climax of an armed conflict, the genocide against the Maya in Guatemala. After Spanish colonialism, acculturation and ethnocide against indigenous peoples, a culture that is already taught as extinct, breathe proudly. Human rights do not apply to rebels ; the military government placed in power by the US during the Cold War does not even consider the Mayans as human beings, anyway. In 1981, this is the 27th year war between the forehead of the people, compound 15% of educated people and 85% campaigns rebels, mostly indigenous, against racist and capitalist authoritarianism.

Another deafening cillement, tinnitus.

The military tank having drawn is behind the cloud of dust in suspension.

The battle continues.

It is real.

All over, the fear, the blood, the bodies, fire, bombs, The balls, screams, pain, suffering, the comrades who fall, relatives who collapse, the family, the love of their life, a look that loses his life light, rape, the torture, the carnal envelopes stripped of their members, their dignity, any breach hole, massacre, open bellies, the head of a living parent was diving in the still warm viscera, concrete that erupts. "The gurgling blood resonate to the beat of my own heart beat. I'm in the guerrilla. My name is Maria. My husband has been missing for a few months now, but my subconscious knows that I would never see him again. My eyes burn, because dust, tears, some blood, shrapnel, no time to learn, I have to fight and in my head, one sentence, one idea ; the struggle for the people, the freedom struggle, for equality. A stronger idea that the horror of war, that requires me to advance again and again, past values ​​and understood through education and training that I received in the mountains, I am suffering, with the other comrades, because I believe in humanism, I love humanity. »

Maria is a woman who participated in the war against the Mayan genocide. Being herself Maya, its mission is to raise awareness of the hidden horrors in Guatemala. Despite his advanced age, it still militates in a group of awareness against sexual violence, cultivates a coffee ground with her second husband and acts as spokesperson with other people in his community to denounce the crimes against humanity committed between 1960 and 1996.

When one part of a militant middle, one is faced with ideas, values, methods that must include, then assimilate, advance or reject. What drives us to join, is mostly, I believe, because it is recognizable in the basic foundations of a group and we have a desire to have an impact on our world, or on the world. On the other hand, What drives us to stay ? At the left active, one of the first shock we are facing, is violence against us, both in terms of judgments in attitudes or the way we approach. Second choc, is violence against people who do not have our privileges strikes. As for me, even having made several interventions in situations of harassment against the oppressed people, I never could conceptualize violence in its entirety, even when the police hit me pleasure to make me suffer, had it not been for the testimony that I heard in Guatemala, all the more horrifying than the other, painting a gloomy picture straight out of Sade cellars ... Despite all this, my moment of the strongest shock was when I walked in the capital with comrades, one of the people pointed me an old building made of concrete bricks and said : "Look, These are impacts that date back to the war ", then, to see the dozens of bullet holes, which had targeted and killed or there 20 years, imagining all these stories in a flash.

It all goes back to the reasons to become and remain active in the militancy : the common point of all heard stories was about how to address violence, which was based on the acceptance of the situation and a desire, since then, to change, the cost of his security and his life. The love of humanity, solidarity and empathy of the people suffering were what the comrades clung to continue fighting, to get over the fear, cold, hunger, the agony. Gavino, a rebel community, said moreover, towards the end of my stay, it has lost the military organization, is that their struggle was based on hatred, which greatly undermined the solidarity between units, thus making them vulnerable. Finally, Gavino summoned me to fight, not by hatred, but philanthropy, communitarianism, desire for equality and understanding, and this is where the hippies are right, but also to never cease in favor of a personal emancipation, because the real danger and the fundamental point of our struggle is to educate and take actions before the situation escalates to the point where we are at a critical point, So to make the revolution and not the insurgency.

Emma Parsons

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Singing a restaurant in New York is organizing with the IWW

This is a new campaign SITT-IWW, and more exciting, which was recently launched in New York. Workers of Ellen's Stardust Diner in Times Square came out publicly in late August 2016. This is known as Stardust Family United that these workers have réuni.es to respond to hazardous working conditions, arbitrary firings and harassment at work.

27stardust1-master768
Read more

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successful strike in the IWW, TTX Maryland vire son patron!

Computer Technology Industry Workers of Maryland launched a strike with SITT-IWW and dismiss their boss!

FREDERICK, MD- Workers and True Technical Experts LLC of workers (TTX) subcontractor Computer technology for major retailers, could not know how far would take their adventure when the 26 May they entered once and for all on strike. Workers have so submitted a list of demands that includedtoent adjustment of wages to industry standard, regular hours, end harassment and wage theft and recognition of the IWW-SITT.

Read more

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Solidarity e-s-order of the Labour Act

In solidarity with those who have fought and still fighting against the Labour Act and "the world", the SITT-Montreal IWW organized a fundraiser to help the group Collective Defense (DefCol) from Paris, and offering supportt moral and financial arrêté.e.s to persons and / or incarcéré.e.s in connection with the movement that began this spring. This amount is of course symbolic, but it is an international solidarity must be maintained in order to fight the system that starves us and plunges us into poverty.

Read more

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operating prison, union response!

The Prisoners form for many decades already the line
forehead of a production system based on slavery. Coincé.es between four walls
the duration of their sentence, they and are often forcé.e.s to work for wages
ridiculous and inhumane conditions. Under the guise of wishing they lie and they make to society what they and they would have taken him or at least they contribute and to pay what it costs to keep them in custody, US prison complex offers more regularly the services of this labor at low cost to private companies.

Considering that the majority of people who passed through the prison system will return there,
they and they are mostly issu.e.s of racialized communities and for the expansion that took the prison system in the US (70 million state-uniens and uniennes states have criminal records and nearly one percent of the population is behind bars) there is no longer any doubt that this is not only a way to put the unemployed to forced labor, but also to ensure that the most démuni.e.s of society not to express their discontent. That is why from the beginning of the year 2014, Members of the IWW contacted by prisonnier.es helped form the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee iwoc(IWW-IWOC). The objective was clear, it was easy connection Prisoners wanting to organize as the foundation of trade unionism to improve their living conditions. In just a few months, more than 700 cards were signed, making the IWOC one of the largest unions in modern IWW in the US.

At the beginning of last April, mobilization has reached a record high when strikes broke out in seven state prisons Texas. Taking the slogan "We are in it for you, you are outside for us" at the foot of the letter, the local members of the IWW from around the world grabbed their phones to call the authorities concerned to emphasize their support for IWOC and their dissatisfaction with the conditions in which these and past are obligé.e.s work, thus causing a complete blockage of Communications Department of Criminal Justice of Texas. Many strikes continued until spontaneous 27 April or refusing to work in the storm, incarcerated workers of the prison Estelle, Always in Texas, let know that they could become the 8th state prison to fall in general strike. Faced with this threat, The authorities responded by pulling force the prisoners to their cells, making use tear gas and batons before placing a plurality of containment cells and prohibit their contact with the outside.

Not shrinking threat, the 10 June, 7 prisonnier.es the Waupun Correctional Institution and Columbia Correctional Institution began a hunger strike to draw attention to the inhumanity of confinement cells. As of publication, the 7 prisonnier.es would be their third day without food and IWOC not stop there having already announced a national general strike 9 September.

For more & rsquo; information, visit the IWOC or visit its biannual daily on the Incarcerated Worker

 

 

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Solidarity with horses and Coursières bike in San Francisco

There are few days, while a first meeting of the members of the Organizing Committee for Union and Coursières bike couriers in Sprig.Inc in San Francisco was organized, the employer decreed the equivalent of a lockout a week followed by a return to work with a time cut in half.

Couriers and Coursières bike that was already that 13,50 /h, subject to company policy forbidding them to be tipped, thus view their schedule to spend thirty hours per week to 3 hours to 15h only. While organizations have addressed the issue to evaluate the living wage 14,37 for the San Francisco area, recall that the carrier and make a trade Coursières also physically demanding and dangerous. One particular requires them and they are able to cross distances 3 5km urban in less than 15 minutes.

Union members have already met many times with the direction of Sprig.Inc to demand compensation for the hours and work days that were cut, as well as wage increases and better working conditions, but the employer seems determined to let the case drag as long as possible. Couriers and Coursières bike in San Francisco, Industrial grouped under the Union 540, therefore call for the solidarity of individuals, communities and organizations to support them in their efforts.

For medium couriers and Coursières bike negotiation:
https://rally.org/couriersunion?utm_source=leader_banner

Solidarity!

540logoredblack

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Wobblies worldwide, Chronicle of Mars.

Dated 1is January 2016, Randall Jamrok, general secretary-treasurer of the IWW, finished to the accounts and we announced that the IWW are now over 3500 members. Mainly distributed between North America and England are also found in Norgève, in Germany, Lithuania, in Austria, in Swiss, in Greece, Australia and China. If this monthly column that does not want a complete list of activities of each 50 and some locals that currently the Union for All and for All, she will try anyway, As bin that evil, to put some light on the activities of the Wobblies from around the world.

The 1is mars, le fellow worker James, branch Balti10569076_720396931330843_5408464749728183823_nmore was done retroactively finally paid the 7500$ salary that Jimmy Johns stores had him after illegally fired for union activity. A similar judgment was given by the National Labor Relation Bord and a few more weeks, about congédiés.es employé.es of franchises Minneapolis. let's remember that the organizing campaign of restaurants " Jimmy John » was launched in Minneapolis 2007 out publicly soon 2010 with the organization of 10 branches quickly joined by fellow workers Baltimore.

Always in Baltimore, the 2 March, coffee and bookseller Red Emma, formerly accredited SITT-IWW, org10405585_751876278193930_2607770610963710947_nanisait the launch of the latest edition of the Book Franklin Rosemont deceased Jow Hill and the creation of a revolutionary working-cultivation against. For occasion David Roediger et Kate Khatib, friends, collaborator and collaboratrice Rosemont were invited es to speak.

The 15 mars, the-Montreal Local organizing a BBQ to mark International Day against Police Brutality. The event that followed attracted over 200 who for the first time in many years managed to take to the streets and to complete the event without mass arrest and police violence.

The 19 mars, Sheffield IWW organizing a training day focused on oppression gender-related reports, gender and sexuality in the workplace.

Organization of Training 101, training on how to launch an IWW union at his workplace, were held in Hartford, strait, Minneapolis, Milwaukee et Edmonton.

Two riots shook the state prisons in Alabama, ctexaslockedin-300x288huhstrong castle of the Organizing Committee of Workers and Workers Jailed es IWW (IWOC-IWW), In recent weeks. Pendant This time, members the IWOC Texas are preparing to launch a series of stops and work slowdown to achieve reforms in the records of the parole, access to health care andu prison system in general so that workers and prison workers are treated humanely.

Members of the Portland branch joined the 26 March Portland Solidarity Network to hold a picket in front LKQ Foster Auto Parts in solidarity with a fellow worker dismissed Andrew, while trying to organize with colleagues against stagnant wages, the dangerousness of their work environment, the lack of transparency of management and workplace harassment.

Already in its sixth strike of the season, United for Families Justiciale organized the 31 March 1 protest action at the headquarters of Driscoll in Watsonville in California to combat inhumane working conditions of workers migrant.es employé.es by the company.

Note finally that the promises was a major geographical and demographic changes to the IWW, mostly located in the Northern United States and England! While on one side the officers and members of the Canadian Regional Organizing Committee, es proud to have witnessed the creation of the branches of Sherbrooke and Quebec are working hard in the development of a project to increase 50% their membership and the creation of 3 New branches Canadian soil (Drummondville, Kitchener-Waterloo et Saskatoon). From the south side of the United States, many members have come together to organize a speaking tour to promote the Solidarity Unionism in their regions in addition to supporting the efforts of the Organizing Committee of Workers and Workers Incarcéré.es (IWOC-IWW) which provides numerous strikes and actions that will culminate in the national strike 9 September!

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Wobblies worldwide

The United States, in Canada, in Britain and the & rsquo; Ireland, through Norway, l & rsquo; Germany, Lithuania, l & rsquo; Austria, Switzerland, Greece, l & rsquo; Australia and China, the Industrial Workers of the World are more than ever this Union to & rsquo; globally. But what do our organizers and organizing our spread to the four winds? What are their plans? What are their struggles? C & rsquo; is to these questions that attempt somehow to meet this new column, which each month will put the spotlight on the activities of the Wobblies from around the world!

The 9 January 2016, the Committee of General Defense Local 14 Minneapolis joined the Quinn family, Native Lives Matter, Idle No More, AIM, Black lives matter and many & rsquo; others to go protest in the cold to demand justice for Phil Quinn, murdered by police in Minneapolis in December 2015. The green line of the subway system and the & rsquo; University Avenue were blocked while the shares of disturbances took place in a Target, Walmart and Food Club. (Industrial Workers Winter 2016) A month later the CDG Local 14 participating in a new share, this time for Jam12744270_1729009820645471_1093583573150809589_nar Clarck, also murdered by the Minneapolis police. The next day the CDG, the IWW African People's Caucus and members of the Minneapolis branch come together for a day of discussing and training, especially about the & rsquo; increased police violence.

The 28 January, Members of the Boston branch are presented for 4e both the District Court Quincy, in solidarity with the arrested locking the & rsquo; motorway 93 when Martin Luther King Day. Number & rsquo; them and they also attend weekly to tow days of fellow workers of the Museum Independent Security Union, which are imposed not possible following times to a hiring freeze.

From the first days of February, the Wobblies Pennsylvania participate in pickets to protect more 10 000 trees that threatens to cut to encourage the construction & rsquo; pipeline.

The 1is February Portland branch walks alongside workers at Portland State University Graduate Student Union as they publicize their campaign by dropping off their applications at the office of the president.

The 4 February the Wobblies of Greece participated in a general strike that paralyzed public transport, airplanes, the boats, taxis, schools and left that & rsquo; a living wage of employees in hospitals, all in order to counter the reforms of the old age pension.

10660124_1017657351624548_3033580278153241779_n

The 15 February Branch and Washington 27 Feb. branch Whatcom-Skagit participate in blockades in solidarity with Familias Unidas por la Justicia farm workers union, which currently calls for a boycott of fruit Driscoll. Boycott that & rsquo; d & rsquo IWW accepted; endorse at its last international convention.

The same day, many prisoners gathered under the banner of the Free Movement Virginia, echoing the Alabama Free Movement, join IWWs to launch campaigns against the treatment of incarcéré.es workers.

The 17 February, Members of the Branch Milwaukee participate in a solidarity picket with enseignant.es Wisconsin.

The 18 February, branch Madison participates in widespread wildcat strike in & rsquo; State met tens of thousands of workers and immigrant.es workers in the streets to challenge a proposed anti-immigrant legislation. The same evening the Madison Infoshop (Industrial union 620 IWW ) Branch and Madison, in collaboration with the Lakeside Press Printing Coop (IWW) organizing a conference on the popular uprising that gripped in Wisconsin 2011.

The 19 February, le Irish Center for Histories of Labour and Class, located in Galway, Ireland, launched a call for contributions in order to draw a portrait of the legacy of the & rsquo; IWW in Ireland and in the diaspora Irish.

The 21 February, Pittsburgh Wobblies participating in Malcolm X Legacy Brunch accompanied by the New Afrikan Independence Party.

The 24 February took place a manifestation of 300 persons before the courts of London in solidarity with 13 militant.es environmentalists, including 4 Members of the & rsquo; IWW, arrêté.es for actions against the extension of the & rsquo; d & rsquo Airport, Heathrow.

The 25 February 2016, members of the Sister Workers Canvass Camelot Union celebrated the third anniversary of their union. The struggle of the SCCU not only represents the first strike organized by the Minneapolis branch, she is too, without a doubt, the longest that the Union has known since its revival in the early 2000, and allowed the creation of the North Country Food Alliance, a work cooperative democratically managed by a dozen Wobblies which redistributes organic food. (Industrial Workers Winter 2016)
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Think about it (Last part)

Here finally the third and final part of Think, Thin it Over, an introductory pamphlet written by a fellow worker member of the IWW section of Portland, Oregon, Tim Acott. Text in English here.

First part

Second part

The Labor Law in a word
The Labor Law is a subject of study that are taught at the university until Ph.D., and which can provide a very profitable career. You could buy a car per year, live in a big beautiful house in good neighborhoods, meet the needs of a wife or a husband who never has to leave home to make money, be a member of high society club, wear beautiful clothes, and send your children to the most prestigious universities. You would all. Of course, you would not have much in common with the people you spend your days defending. It's the common attorney-e-s - a specialized profession and well-paid. Understand me. We value our lawyer-e-s, especially when justice knocks on our doors. We want them and they are vivid and bright, and they and they intimately understand the complexity of the Labor Law. But neither you nor I have the time and money to study labor law at a prestigious university. However, we must understand the basic principles of labor law and how it affects our daily lives at work.

well, here it is in a nutshell. The Labor Law is implemented by the bosses and their government system and courts to prevent us, Workers medium-do-s, to come together and fight for our fair share, for fear that we would, and that one day we would, all. This is essential information. The basic idea, behind the great laws governing unionization, is it possible to have a union if you really want, but he can only fight for certain causes. It can only solve some problems. It must be sufficiently low and weighed, and follow a set of sophisticated rules that do not apply, at least in practice, your boss and friends at the golf club. You are forced-e-s wait while the latter get a fast court. You should limit your activities to certain legal forms, but these people can virtually do what they want. Their e-s-attorney are recognized-e-s as ours, because they and they cost more. You should see if only their cars !

It surprises you in this country ? I sincerely hope not. You see, this is not really a democracy, economic decisions are made democratically, yet they underpin all other decisions taken there. The circulation of money, the merchandise, goods and services, food and shelter, health and holidays, all fall under this other decision-making system. You can nominate capitalism, corporate reign, business, or what you want, but you can not name it democracy. Everyone laughs. The law is not that of the people, by the people, for the people, no matter what your teachers taught you. Sorry, but it does not work well.

The Labor Law is the result of the influence of corporate interests on the government and the judiciary, and implies that you need to protect your head and your ass, and pay attention to what you say and do. If you want to play their game, just follow the system in place : sign your cards, call for a certification election, and wait. It is possible that by the time this is the right approach to take. But never let the boss set the playing field and decide everything.

This is a street fight, an agression, a coldly calculated assault, and you must defend yourself as much as possible. Protect your head and your ass, use your creativity and above all with your workers comrades, and each tactic, strategy, and interesting idea that you find. If you let them set the playing field and shape the rules, you do not have a single chance to win. It's as simple as that the Labor Law.

cardBut remember that their game is not the only one there. This is not the only way to, the only solution to our problems com
Muns. Take for example the IWW-SITT. Think about it - join the union of your class and fight for full-product of your work, in the manner of Wobblies. Do not let them decide for you. This is our game : we do the work, we manufacture and trans
carry all. Finally, we control the economy. If we organize democratically to advance our own interests, we can share the wealth we produce already and we would have enough for all and all those who are doing the work.

Help advance work
William D. Haywood, alias Big Bill, he used to sign his letters and correspondence "Help advance work, William D. Haywood. "It was a founding organizer and treasurer-general secretary of the ISTC-IWW for many years in our most turbulent times, and it was a great figure of the union. This closing formula will tell you a lot about his leadership methods and the union at that time.

Help advance work. We joined, Today as in the past, to do a job, to accomplish a task, for ourselves and one-e-s for others, for our class and for future generations. This task, clearly affirmed in the preamble, is the abolition of wage labor. Building a new society right inside the old. finishing, once and for all, with the tyranny of money, the bosses on workers.

It's a big job. Too big to accomplish by a single person or e-strip of great people, no matter how powerful-e-s. Help advance work. This is a big job that takes as much time as necessary, no matter how many battles and how many hours of volunteer work and thought we must be. Regardless of the number of tasks, small or large, are accomplished ; How many hours away ; How many editions of newspapers ; how many meetings, discussions, of sent and ballots counted, sold stamps, licked, and affixed in how little red books, and how much money counted and verified.

It is an unglamorous work as a whole. This is serious, and often laborious. A hard job lightened by many arms, and advancing with small steps. Sometimes it's just holding the line against setbacks. Sometimes, it's not even that. And yet sometimes, is vast leaps forward.

"Every member organizer / organizer, "" We are all leaders and all, "" If every wobbly new registered or new e-wobbly weekly, we syndicates the world in a few years. "Help advance work.

Work : Educate, Organiser, emancipate. These are the names of the three stars on the emblem of the IWW-SITT, part of each card and macaroon. Self education and comrades. Self-organization and comrades. The emancipation of a class in the struggle, the war, and earth that feeds us and lulls everyone.

So will you join us ? Will you help advance the work ? We left there to do other ?

IWW-ITS

Translation and adaptation to French by
Communication-Translation Committee, SITT-IWW Montreal
2015