It’s easier to take on the boss, rally up the troops, and build solidarity when you 1) Know your rights, and 2) know your enemy (the bosses).

Some helpful tools you’ll find online:

1. Labor Notes Magazine. My advice: subscribe to Labor Notes, get it in the mail every month, read it and ATTEND THEIR BIENNIAL CONFERENCE IN DETROIT!

Photo: Ric Urrutia

Labor Notes has been around for about 25 years and it’s the magazine that anyone can contribute to: workers, union members, union staff, elected union leaders, etc.  It’s not some glossy union magazine that uses union dues to promote overpaid bureaucrats and the bureaucrats of bureaucrats. No way.

Labor Notes publishes books like: A Troublemakers Handbook, Democracy Is Power, Power on the Job, Why Unions Matter, etc. You can order these books by clicking here.

The LN biennial conference is coming up! This is an opportunity to meet workers, union members, and labor activists, just like yourself from all around the country AND ALL AROUND THE WORLD! Go to Detroit to share your experiences and learn from other union activists. For more information on the conference click here.

2. Association for Union Democracy. If you wanna get a little more technical and legal about your union democracy…these are the people to contact. They also carry many of the same books as Labor Notes.

3. The research sites of other unions. Yeah, I’d be jealous if you like *their* site more than my blog but…I can’t cover everything and it’s a handy site.

4. Labourstart.

Photo: Ric Urrutia

Want news of unions from around the world? This is the place. Labour Start, where trade unionists start the day. I remember when we organized a union at my former workplace. I used to look on Labour Start every day for inspiration and read about trade unionists in other countries who would go on general strike, occupy their workplaces, build solidarity with students, and tell their bosses to eff off in multiple ways. A good source for all labor-related news.

5. Why Unions Matter by Michael Yates. I highly recommend this book. It’s a very simple book that covers the long, turbulent history of unions in the US. Everything from revolutionary unions like the Industrial Workers of the World who in 1905 had visions about calling general strikes during time of war to bring the hulking war machine to a screeching halt…to union leaders like Samuel Gompers who advocated “bread and butter” business unionism (a form of unionism which concerns itself only with wage and monetary issues and has no greater vision for social justice).

6. Teamsters for a Democratic Union. These guys have been around for a looong time. I think about as long as Labor Notes. There’s plenty we can learn from their struggle for union democracy. These guys were the ones who helped the Teamsters union bring UPS to a complete standstill in 1997 and getting one of the best (if not THE best) UPS contract the Teamsters had ever seen. Yeah, lots to learn from them!

7. The United Electrical Workers (UE). This is a small but feisty and democratic union. They have books and resources on union democracy, the rights of union members, etc. These were the workers who occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago a couple of years ago. The union movement had not seen something like that in AGES. Bad. Ass!

8. Union Songs. Yes, it’s the Labor Notes site again but…

…union activists need union songs to sing! Music keeps the history and the struggle alive. …keeps the fire burning inside you.  Pass on the history of the labor movement.

Music is a beautiful way to pay tribute to those who risked everything so workers could have a little more today.

9. In Denver: The Romero Troupe.

Photo: Ric Urrutia

The Romero Troupe is a group of local actors (some pro, some newbies) that perform plays on the history of the labor/union movement and social justice. Nothing keeps history alive like art (in my opinion). Romero Troupe performs the plays and plays the music.

Click here if you wanna get in touch with them about show dates.

10. Democracy Now!

Photo: Ric Urrutia

Democracy Now is by far my favorite radio show. Above is a picture of the show’s host, Amy Goodman interviewing a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War during the DNC in Denver. Amy Goodman is bad ass. She’s sharp, knowledgeable, on the air every single day, asking sharp questions, letting people speak/debate. Democracy Now brings us a daily update on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Denver you can hear it on 88.5FM from 7:00am until 8:00am every weekday. You can also listen to them online.

The reason DN is included in this list is because I’ve heard them ask tough questions of today’s union leaders.  Usually it’s taken as a given that union leaders like Andy Stern, Eliseo Medina, Bruce Raynor, etc, are on our side but I’ve found DN staff to be quite well-informed of the problems within our unions.

In solidarity,
Ric Urrutia

A Wobbly picket outside Starbucks on MLK Day
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

NEW YORK — “To show solidarity with our fellow workers and send a clear message to the bosses that we stand united against all forms of slavery,” the New York City branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) held its third annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day rally at the Union Square East Starbucks on January 18.

The union, joined by dozens of workers, community members and labor allies, called on the multibillion dollar company to commemorate Dr. King on this federal holiday by paying a holiday premium of time-and-a-half pay to baristas, just as the Seattle-based chain does for its baristas on five other federal holidays.

To press their demands for recognition of MLK Day, the “Wobblies” and their supporters gathered outside the Union Square East Starbucks at Noon as the sun began to break through the cloud cover.

Organizer Vance Hinton speaking outside the Union Square East Starbucks
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

A tall man with a booming voice stepped up and addressed his sisters and brothers.

“My name is Vance Hinton. I am an organizer,” he said.

“I’m glad to see all of you here today…I want to tell you that if you’re not in the IWW, then you’re missing something very important. I joined about a year and a half ago and I can’t tell you the friends and colleagues that I’ve made as a result of being in this union,” he added.

“If you’re here and you’ve never been to any of our functions before you’re going to have a great time today,” Hinton said with a grin.

Announcing that it was time to chant, Hinton issued lyrics sheets to the crowd, now 50 in number. As they chanted, the crowd formed a walking picket, under the watchful eye of an NYPD detective.

During the picket a Department of Sanitation garbage truck pulled up and two workers got out. The men were about to enter the coffee shop when they realized that they were crossing a picket line. They abruptly turned around and walked back to their truck — as the Wobblies cheered. The DSNY workers gave the Wobs a thumbs up and drove off.

The Rude Mechanical Orchestra added a festive feel to the rally
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

As the Wobs picketed, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra arrived and began to play. Wobblies chanted, “No union — No latte!” as the RMO provided a marching backbeat. Snare and bass drums, accompanied by a horn section, added a festive feel to the rally.

After the chanting, organizer Daniel Gross addressed the crowd.

Daniel Gross said 500 Starbucks workers have joined the union
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

“Starbucks is a poverty wage employer,” Gross said.

He went on to describe the insurmountable obstacle Starbucks workers face when trying to budget their money — the company does not provide consistent hours from week to week. With no set schedule, workers have no way to anticipate how much income they will take in. Because of the company’s labor practices the union has had considerable success in its organizing drive, begun in 2004, and Gross reported that Wobblies are actively organizing the coffee chain’s stores in New York, the Twin Cities, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Fort Worth, Texas.

“Over 500 workers at this company now march under the IWW banner,” Gross said.

Barista Liberte Locke is struggling for respect on the job
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

Barista Liberte Locke also spoke — in front of the very store she works in.

“Happy Martin Luther King Junior Day,” Locke said, telling the crowd that it was her favorite holiday. “I’ve never to this day, worked on Martin Luther King Day but if I get time and a half next year — I will,” she added.

Locke described the goals of the campaign she is a part of: “For better wages, more consistent scheduling, better working conditions and especially more respect on the job.”

The Rude Mechanical Orchestra performed a spirited rendition of “We Shall Overcome” — playing the civil rights anthem with trombone and trumpet solos set to a marching beat — as the Wobblies prepared to march to the second rally of the day.

The Wobblies marched from Starbucks to Kmart
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

Leaving Starbucks to digest their message, the Wobblies and their supporters marched down Broadway to the Kmart in Astor Place, where the union is demanding that the Sears Holding owned company drop Media Planning Group (MPG) as their media planning and buying agency and instead chose a socially responsible ad agency.

In April 2009, MPG cut 11 percent of its staff, or 50 workers, from its offices in New York, Boston and Chicago. The multimillion-dollar advertising giant only gave these workers a four-week severance package. In order to receive their severance pay, MPG required that the laid-off workers sign an “Agreement of Separation and Release,” which included the stipulation that the former employees would not “in any way denigrate any aspect of the company,” yet the company made no commitment not to denigrate its former employees.

The sacked employees are now demanding the severance pay they feel they are owed, and the IWW is asking Kmart to stop advertising with MPG until the ad agency negotiates a severance agreement that is acceptable to both sides.

As the winter sun warmed hearts and hands, the rally ended — and the Wobblies returned to their families, to their jobs, and to their organizing.

For more information on the IWW and its various organizing drives, please visit: www.wobblycity.org and www.iww.org.

View Photos/Videos From The Event…

One of the basic rights of workers in the industrialised world is the right to organise. Under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948,workers “have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.”

Most often, this organisation takes the form of trade unions, and it is always used as a way of pressing for an improvement in the terms and conditions of wage labour. However, it is also associated with more revolutionary movements such as anarcho-syndicalism and the fight for collective worker ownership of the means of production.

In discussing this subject, I have three main areas of concern. The first is to defend the core idea of worker organisation against critiques by advocates of capitalism. The second is to argue for a militant rather than concessionary approach to industrial disputes and, tying into that notion, the third is discussion of why a non-hierarchical revolutionary model of unionism offers better prospects than the more common top-down bureaucracy.

Deconstructing the “free” market argument

The most outspoken critics of worker organisation, in any form, are of course the bosses and capitalists themselves. Although it varies somewhat with different schools of thought, the basis of their argument goes back to the principles laid out by Adam Smith.

"It's quite remarkable to trace the evolution of values from a pre-capitalist thinker like Adam Smith, with his stress on sympathy and the goal of perfect equality and the basic human right to creative work, to contrast that and move on to the present to those who laud the new spirit of the age, sometimes rather shamelessly invoking Adam Smith's name." ~ Noam Chomsky

Or rather, by the strawman version of Smith that the right have built up for themselves. As Johann Hari points out, although “Smith is usually presented as a poster-boy for privatisation and tax cuts,” but in fact “he was in favour of progressive taxation, so that ‘the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor.’”

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith observed that “the produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour” and that “in that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer.”

However, this original state “could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock.” Because, “as soon as land becomes private property,” we find that “almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it” is subject to deductions by the landlord. This is what Mikhail Bakunin refered to as the “levy[ing] upon collective labour either land’s rent or capital’s interest” which allows the upper classes “the possibility of living without working” as, in the words of the Class War Federation, “a bunch of parasites.”

Returning to Smith, we see that “what are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same.” For “the workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible” and so “the workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible.”

However, “the masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily” and “have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work.” But even today, when workers enjoy far greater rights than they did in Smith’s time, there remain “many against combining to raise it.”

In the aftermath of the bitter struggles of the 1970s and 80s, Margaret Thatcher utterly decimated the power of the trade unions, and passed a slew of repressive anti-union legislation. In 2005 Barry Camfield, assistant general secretary of what was then the Transport & General Workers’ Union, explained the lasting effects of this legislation;

The essential nature of trade unionism is incorporated in so many human rights treaties and conventions that they almost defy listing, but central to these are ILO Conventions 87 and 98 that guarantee the freedom to associate, the right to organise and the right to bargain collectively.

That these rights were being successively abrogated was recognised all through the Thatcher and Major years, with almost an annual condemnation of the UK at the ILO’s Committee of Experts examining labour law breaches from around the world. All of this would have been well known to the Labour Party leadership in advance of the 1997 general election.

Within that incoming Labour government’s ‘Fairness at Work’ framework, there was much for unions and their members to applaud but much to disappoint also. The restoration of trade unions rights for GCHQ workers was seen as an important victory, as was the introduction of the minimum wage legalisation. More recently, unions have generally welcomed the deal hammered out under the rubric of the ‘Warwick Accord’.

Nothing in any of this however remotely addresses the repeal of Thatcher’s anti-union laws.

Today, we have our Prime Minister proudly proclaiming that the UK has the least regulated labour market in Europe. From New Labour newspeak we have to decipher that as meaning that British workers are the most tightly constrained of any labour force in Europe.

What our Prime Minster declares is that there will be no unfettered right to strike, no right to take solidarity action, no freedom for workers to write their union rule book free from state interference. In fact, no right to establish a union membership agreement even where a union and an employer voluntarily agree to do so!

Thus, we still find that “in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage.”

Those who quote Smith as an advocate of the capitalist “free” market often argue the point that capitalism will self-regulate to produce fair wages and working conditions. Particularly, they will refer to the fact that “the increase in the wages of labour necessarily increases the price of many commodities” as an argument against measures such as the National Minimum Wage.

To quote the UK Libertarian Party’s manifesto;

It has become widely accepted in Britain that the minimum wage is a just and necessary piece of legislation that protects workers from exploitation and that generally makes people better off. It is portrayed as a humanitarian and benevolent law. This is far from the truth.

The first question to ask is: why might we need a minimum wage? Who actually earns minimum wage and thus might be earning less without it? Most of those who earn minimum wage have either recently left (or are in) education, previously retired, recently immigrated or are in some sort of training, such as an apprenticeship. None of these groups tend to remain on minimum wage for long, and thus would not remain on wages below the current legal minimum for long if this limit were removed.

Smith himself argued against such errant nonsense when he pointed out that “masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate” and “sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate” with only the “contrary defensive combination of the workmen” to resist this trend.

As practical evidence of this practice in the modern day, we have the lesson of Unite the Union’s “Fair Tips” Campaign. Not only the original incidence of employers exploiting a legal loophole in order to pay below the minimum wage but also the fact that with the loophole closed businesses found other ways to lower wages offers weight to Smith’s position. As does the revelation from last year that the construction industry was violating its own agreements to pay migrant builders as little as £8.80 a week. Not to mention the countless examples of sweatshop labour and the exploitation of third-world workers.

Even this fact is argued as a good thing by the market fundamentalists. To them, Smith’s quote that “every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence” is key. The argument goes that “the demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it.” Thus, even extreme cases such as child labour in sweatshops fits in with what the Libertarians call an “essential” “first rung” for allowing people to “to develop and flourish” so that they may “move up the economic ladder to more profitable employment.”

That, in reality, “high wages of labour and high profits of stock, however, are things, perhaps, which scarce ever go together” goes unnoted. As does this other apt observation from Smith [emphasis added];

In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages. If in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc., should, all of them, be advanced twopence a day; it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it, multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed. That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into wages would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the profits of all the different employers of those working people should be raised five per cent, that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into profit would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise in geometrical proportion to this rise of profit. The employer of the flaxdressers would in selling his flax require an additional five per cent upon the whole value of the materials and wages which he advanced to his workmen. The employer of the spinners would require an additional five per cent both upon the advanced price of the flax and upon the wages of the spinners. And the employer of the weavers would require a like five per cent both upon the advanced price of the linen yarn and upon the wages of the weavers. In raising the price of commodities the rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. The rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

For militancy over concession

It is fair to say, then, that without resistance from organised labour the machinations of the capitalist class would reduce the vast majority of those who earn their profit to having to survive at subsistence level. Indeed, with a single adult on the National Minimum Wage having to work 47 hours every week to meet the £13,900 a year gross income needed “in order to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living,” plenty of people are already in just that position. And it is only through constant struggle that we have even this meagre safety net.

Workers’ resistance can also take the credit for our having “the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment” enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The eight hour day, the prohibition of child labour, and even the right to organise itself are just two other achievements of industrial struggles.

But does the fact that (at least in the West) we know enjoy such a position mean that we should stop fighting?

There are those who would argue exactly that. There are even those who would argue that, in hard times such as the present recession, workers should do more to help their employers without expecting extra in return.

Even more remarkably, there are workers who do exactly that. Last month, the Guardian reported that “unpaid overtime is the most commonly cited form of assistance with one in three workers claiming they have worked longer hours without extra pay” and “around 15% of employees said they had either accepted a pay freeze or deliberately not requested a pay rise, while 14% had taken unpaid leave.”

Mr Block, an IWW cartoon which caricatured those workers who acted as apologists for the bosses, who play them off against each other to maximise profit

The idea is that, in doing this, workers are helping to secure their jobs by ensuring that the trouble faced by employers doesn’t translate into job or pay cuts. However, this is a fallacy.

To take the British Airways Cabin Crew dispute as an example, in November BA reduced the number of cabin crew on long haul flights from 15 to 14 and introduced a two-year pay freeze from 2010.  In protesting this, the crew have been accused by Chief Executive Willie Walsh of “a lack of concern for our customers, our business and other employees.”

However, we find that those cooperating with the measures risk betraying themselves and their fellow workers. BA “urgently needs to cut costs to ride out its dire financial situation,” which means “it would have to cut a further 1,200 staff.” Whilst this might be what the Guardian refers to as a “personal sacrifice in order to help keep their employer afloat,” it hardly amounts to a wise “redundancy avoidance strategy.”

Looking deeper, we also see that a “very well received” scheme by BT in fact resulted in the company trying “to cut 15,000 jobs this year on top of the 15,000 which have gone over the past 12 months.”

The fact is that, under the flimsiest and most transparent of pretext, those workers engaged in such concilliatory actions are acting against their own class interests. They are reminiscent of Mr Block, the cartoon character developed for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). According to Walker C Smith, writing in 1913;

Mr. Block is legion. He is representative of that host of slaves who think in terms of their masters. Mr. Block owns nothing, yet he speaks from the standpoint of the millionaire; he is patriotic without patrimony; he is a law-abiding outlaw .. [who] licks the hand that smites him and kisses the boot that kicks him .. the personification of all that a worker should not be.

In an article for the Commune on the BA dispute, David Broder dismisses this “idea that perhaps the workers do have just grievances, but are being misled by “dinosaur” trade union militants because they are too thick to understand that standing up for yourself is not worthwhile.” He points out that “militancy is not because they are desperate to screw over the passengers and lose two weeks’ pay, nor is it because their grievances are being exploited by “union barons”” but “a blow against the attacks raining down on all of us.”

As we have seen, complacency in the labour movement will not merely stagnate the issue of workers’ rights. It gives business interests an opening in which to start rolling them back. It is the rich who are waging class war, with the poor its victims. Militancy and direct resistance is the only way that we can strike back.

For communism from below

But what is it that we hope to achieve through such actions? According to reformist trade unions such as Unite, the goal is simple;

Unite’s vision is of a prosperous society in which employers and employees work together to build successful businesses and safe, healthy working environments. All those who contribute to their success receive the rewards, respect and recognition they deserve.

Whilst the IWW envisions something quite different;

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

So which aim should we be striving towards?

An anarchist banner hanging from a university building in Greece, during the anniversary of the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police in December 2008

Anarchists and libertarian communists would argue, and I would agree, that we can only hope for real and lasting change by striving towards revolution. For the reasons, we must go all the way back to Smith’s point that “the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock” is usury which subverts that fact that “in th[e] original state of things … the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer.”

As the Anarcho-Syndicalist FAQ on the website Anarcho-Syndicalism 101 puts it, “the wage system is the primary means by which the capitalists of the world, or those who possess the material wealth of the entire planet, wage class war on their fellow human beings.” It does so because “it facilitates the exploitation of human beings, and because it reduces them to the status of slaves, in a very real sense of the word.”

The capitalist system requires a large pool of individuals who are compelled to sell their capacity for work in order to live, individuals who have been denied their human right to material independence from birth, the basis of all their freedom and opportunity for development and achivement. It is true that a very small minority of people can rise up the economic ladder, just as others can fall down it. At all times, however, the ladder itself remains, the system of exploitation whereby some profit from the labour of others. That particular individuals can swap places in the cycle of exploitation and wage-slavery is completely immaterial.

Noam Chomsky, amongst others, has noted that the wage labour system renders any conception of true democracy a nonsense;

Representative democracy, as in, say, the United States or Great Britain, would be criticized by an anarchist of this school on two grounds. First of all because there is a monopoly of power centralized in the state, and secondly — and critically — because the representative democracy is limited to the political sphere and in no serious way encroaches on the economic sphere. Anarchists of this tradition have always held that democratic control of one’s productive life is at the core of any serious human liberation, or, for that matter, of any significant democratic practice. That is, as long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.

Thus, we see that the “prosperous society in which employers and employees work together” of the reformist unions is a mirage. It is built upon the mythical notion that capitalism can be “fair,” which I have already dissected above.

In place of this notion, what we must strive for is a system of communism from below. As Mikhail Bakunin once put it, “we wish, in a word, equality – equality in fact as a corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically.”

Industrial Workers of the World’s Delegation to Palestine presents a Coctail Party and Art Auction benefiting the Palestine Ramallah Federation of Independent and Democracti Trade Unions and Workers’ Committees. This event takes place on Saturday November 14th at the Ninja House (see above image for address). It will feature Music From Palestine, Art and Events.
At the event, you will have the opportunity to bid on and win an original painting by VAA Collective Member and Palestinian-American Artist, Nabeel Muaddi.

We hope to see you there!

“Orrin N. Hilton, the lawyer representing Hill during the appeal, declared: ‘The main thing the state had on Hill was that he was an IWW and therefore sure to be guilty. Hill tried to keep the IWW out of [the trial]… but the press fastened it upon him.’

“Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1815, and his last word was ‘Fire!’ Just prior to his execution, he had written to Bill Haywood, an IWW leader, saying, ‘Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize… Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah’” [Wiki].

Joe Hill

Libertarian Socialism

Eugene Debs

Mother Jones

Participatory democracy

Anarcho-syndicalism

(revision: 10/03)

Manuli, ronde antioperaie in azione

Paolo Persichetti
Liberazione 6 settembre 2009

Eccole le ronde antioperaie dopo quelle antimmigrati. C’è voluto molto meno del previsto. Le ronde civiche introdotte nel nuovo pacchetto sicurezza, votato dalla maggioranza di governo e congeniato dal ministro dell’Interno Maroni, producono i loro primi effetti concreti. Le avvisaglie si erano viste davanti alla Lasme di Melfi, quando il 24 agosto gli operai furono accolti da alcuni colpi di pistola sparati da un vigilante, dopo aver fatto irruzione all’interno della fabbrica per consentire ad alcuni di loro di salire sopra i tetti dello stabilimento. Ora alla Manuli di Ascoli l’impiego di milizie private in funzione antioperaia appare ancora più netta. Segnale inquietante di una nuova strategia scelta dal padronato per fronteggiare le proteste contro i licenziamenti e lo smantellamento delle aziende. Anche se in questo caso a operare sono imprese di vigilanza privata, la svolta commerciale impressa ai nuovi servizi offerti da queste società è per intero legata alla filosofia della privatizzazione della sicurezza ispirata dalle nuove regole.
Queste società non limitano più la loro attività alla tradizionale sorveglianza degli impianti da furti e atti di vandalismo, ma estendono i loro servizi (l’uso della forza) a un’azione di aperto sostegno della parte padronale nei conflitti industriali. Certo la K9service, una delle ditte operanti nel mercato della sicurezza impiegate dal management della Manuli, specializzata nell’uso di unità cinofile, è ancora ben lontana dall’incarnare il ruolo e la dimensione che fu quello della famigerata Pinkerton. L’agenzia d’investigazione e sicurezza privata statunitense creata dallo scozzese Allan Pinkerton nel 1850, diventata la maggiore agenzia privata in grado di fornire un costoso servizio di milizia privata agli industriali del nord degli Stati uniti durante gli scioperi di fino 800 e del primo 900. Non siamo ancora lì, ma le premesse ci sono tutte e la tendenza se non adeguatamente contrastata può essere devastante. I “Pinkertons” si occuparono più volte di sedare con la forza gli scioperi, in particolare durante la stagione della lotta per le otto ore. Questa agenzia conduceva un vero e proprio lavoro di intelligence contro le organizzazioni operaie. Specializzata nel procurare spie, agenti provocatori e milizie private ai datori di lavoro in lotta contro le prime organizzazioni sindacali e il sindacalismo rivoluzionario dell’epoca, in particolare l’Iww, Industrial Workers of the World. Nell’ultimo decennio dell’800 la Pinkerton poteva vantare un apprezzabile curriculum antioperaio. «Negli anni precedenti aveva prestato servigi alle aziende in ben settanta importanti vertenze di lavoro, duemila agenti in servizio permanente e trentamila riserve pronte all’uso». Per intendersi, si tratta di cifre che all’epoca rappresentavano una forza superiore a quella dell’Esercito federale in servizio (Jeremy Brecher, Sciopero! Storia delle rivolte di massa nell’America dell’ultimo secolo, DeriveApprodi 1998). «Posso assumere metà dei lavoratori perché uccidano l’altra metà», dichiarava J. Gould, costruttore e proprietario di ferrovie nel 1866, di fronte allo sciopero di alcuni suoi dipendenti (Filippo Manganaro, Senza Patto ne legge. Antagonismo operaio negli Stati Uniti, Odradek 2004). La Pinkerton era lì, pronta a organizzare l’impresa con straordinaria efficienza. Ritenuta responsabile del massacro di Haymarket del 3 maggio 1886 a Cicago, durante una manifestazione per le otto ore, evento sanguinoso da cui scaturì un’ondata di scioperi internazionali, si macchiò di numerosi altri delitti, tra cui omicidi mirati di sindacalisti, massacri durante manifestazioni e scioperi, pestaggi, linciaggi, devastazioni di sedi sindacali, corruzione di dirigenti operai, reclutamento di crumiri. Ogni mezzo era lecito pur di arrivare a rompere l’antagonismo operaio. Acquistata nel 1999 dalla svedese Securitas è diventata una di quelle agenzie di sicurezza attiva globale profetizzate da Robert Nozick. Vanta trai i suoi clienti governi, banche e multinazionali. Interviene nel campo dello spionaggio industriale, nei piani di evacuazione politica, intelligence economico-politica, antiterrorismo.

Link
Cronache operaie
La violenza del profitto: ma quali anni di piombo, gli anni 70 sono stati anni d’amianto
Pinkerton, l’agenzia di sicurezza privata al servizio del padronato
Mappa delle resistenze operaie: le altre Innse d’Italia
Innse, un modello di lotta da seguire
Francia, le nuove lotte operaie
New Fabbris, fabbrica minata dagli operai
Bossnapping, gli operai di Continental strappano l’accordo
Il sesso lo decideranno i padroni, piccolo elogio del film Louise Michel
Grande paura: Paolo Granzotto, il reggibraghe
Il Bossnapping vince: la Caterpillar cede
Bossnapping, una storia che viene da lontano
Bossnapping nuova arma sociale dei lavoratori
Bruxelles,manager Fiat trattenuti dagli operai in una filiale per 5 ore
Francia, altri manager sequestrati e poi liberati
Francia, padroni assediati torna l’insubordinazione operaia
Rabbia populista o nuova lotta di classe?

The Wheatland Hop Riot

Back in the day on August 3rd, 1913, the Wheatland Hop Riot took place in Northern California. Nearly two-thousand agricultural hop pickers toiled at Durst Ranch working long hours in the hot sun for low pay. Many of the workers slept a mile from the ranch in the open air without blankets in cold night temperatures while others had tents. All were subjected to unsanitary water supplies in labor conditions that screamed for unionization. The Industrial Workers of the World heeded the call of the hop pickers as leaders such as Richard Ford spoke to them about the need for a strike. The meeting continued until members of the local sheriff’s posse confronted Ford and attempted to arrest him. Workers sought to protect Ford, when shots were fired in the air. A riot ensued that left four people dead – a worker, the district attorney, the deputy sheriff, and a young boy who was a bystander.

Though Ford preached non-violence the state arrested him and Herman Suhr, a wobbly organizer who wasn’t even present for starting the riot. They were convicted of second–degree murder and sentenced to life. The Wheatland Hop Riot, nevertheless, harvested future organizing in the fields of California.

Tre män är inblandade i följande historia: Joe Hill, Bo Widerberg och Stefan Grossman.

Joe Hill alias Joseph Hillstroem alias Joel Hägglund, född i Gävle, Sverige den 7 oktober 1879, emigrerade 1901 till USA, arbetade på jordbruksfält, på salooner och i Kaliforniens hamnar, organiserade sej i Industrial Workers of the World, anklagad och funnen skyldig för mord i januari respektive juni 1914, avrättad utanför Salt Lake City tidigt på morgonen den 19 november 1915. 

Bo Widerberg, svensk filmregissör, kallad “fascist” av två unga svenska filmarbetare, betraktad som marxist av Svenska Filminstutet, betraktar sej själv som revolutionär (?), sjöng “Internationalen” utanför Festivalpalatset när hans prisbelönta film “Elvira Madigan” visades i Cannes och skrev en annons för sin nya film “Joe Hill” på insidan av en kvinnas sko på kasinot.

Stefan Grossman, gitarrist och kompositör, född för tjugosex år sen i New York, där han spelade i Even Dozen Jug Band tillsammans med John Sebastian och i den tidiga upplagan av The Fugs (“Man”, säger Stefan, “that was hard work, Ed Sanders is a real mother fucker.”), nu bosatt i Rom, där han skriver gitarrskolor, mest hur man spelar bluesgitarr, hjälper dessutom Paul Simon i San Fransisco med hans nya soloalbum och enligt ryktet så kan duon i  framtiden komma att heta Simon & Grossman…

I januari var Stefan Grossman i Sverige för fjärde eller femte gången. Han är en regelbunden gäst, turnerar mellan universitet och små  klubbar. Den här gången spelade han  på stadsmuseet och studentkåren i Stockholm, medverkade också i Bo Teddy Ladbergs stockholmsversion av TV-programmet “Kvällsöppet”. Hans skivbolag presenterade Stefan och Bo Widerberg för varann. Widerberg lyssnade på några av Grossmans senaste LP-skivor och bestämde sej direkt: “Du ska göra musiken till min film om Joe Hill!” Och Grossman svarade: “Visst.”

När jag skriver detta är det mars och Stefan Grossman har åter varit här och åter rest härifrån: till San Fransisco och skivinspelning med just Paul Simon. I en och en halv vecka satt Grossman från 9 till 5 på Europa Film och tittade om och om igen på den ännu inte färdigklippta eller ens färdiginspelade filmen. Några instruktioner om hur musiken skulle låta hade inte Bo gett honom. Som Stefan sa till mej: “Kanske kommer han hit, kanske inte. Man vet aldrig.”

Efter två bussar och en och en halv timma stiger jag in i  Europa Films stora mixrum som är alldeles mörkt. Klockan är kvart över ett. På duken går Tommy Berggren som Joe Hill omkring på New Yorks gator. Jag hör gitarrmusiken som följer Joe Hill upp- och nerför gatorna och in i hans hyresrum: grov och kantig, både hård och sökande.        

Musiken förvånar. Den gitarrmusik som jag minns från Stefan Grossmans skivor är ljuv och drömsk och en smula sentimental. Att Bo Widerberg valde Grossman som kompositör till en film om Joe Hill, arbetarhjälten, tyckte jag verkade oklyftigt. Men tydligen hade jag fel, för den musik som jag nu hör kan karaktäriseras som arbetarmusik. 

Stefan ler. Han ser på mitt ansikte att jag är förbryllad. “Det är gammal musik”, säger han, “gammal musik spelad på ett modernt sätt. Jag har försökt göra musiken så enkel som möjligt, bara låta den ligga i bakgrunden och betona filmens handling, försöka återge atmosfären av det fattiga Amerika som immigranterna mötte när de kom över havet. Samma Amerika idag som då. Musiken saknar ålder, den är  varken gammal eller modern och samtidigt bådadera.”

Med sin musik till Joe Hill-filmen har Stefan Grossman fullbordat en cirkelgång och kommit tillbaka dit där han började som 15-åring – med att lyssna på och lära sej av Big Bill Broonzy. Därefter passerade han igenom folkmusiken som medlem i Even Dozen Jug Band och rockmusiken med Fugs, för att på sina senaste album ha närmat sej klassisk gitarrmusik.

På duken är Joe Hill på väg västerut från New York, på jakt efter ett jobb och efter sin bror Paul. Han träffar Blackie, en gammal, tuff och råbarkad luffare, och de slår sej ihop på resan västerut, tjuvåkandes på taken till godstågen. Stefan ackompanjerar deras resa med en sån där “train blues”, som svarta slavar brukade sjunga på bomullsfälten i Mississippi, fångarna sjöng i sydstadsfängelserna, gospelsången i de svarta kyrkorna; tåget, som symbolen för frihet, rikedom och lycka.

“Vissa kritiker”, säger han, “tror att jag influerats av klassisk gitarrmusik. Men de har fel. Jag äger inte en enda skiva med klassisk gitarr. Och den sortens gitarrmusik, den är död. Jag spelar funky, jordnära musik. Jag är aldrig längre bort från blues än ett par ackord.”

Stefan spelar samma blues under en svit symbolladdade scener när Joe och den råbarkade hobon Blackie träffar på en polare till Blackie, en engelsman, och de sitter kring en lägereld och äter en kyckling som Joe och Blackie stulit från en lantgård.

Och engelsmannen säger: “När jag dricker mitt five a clock tea vet jag att Englands kung också dricker sitt té. Det är ett av dessa små traditioner som skapar och håller samman världens största imperium.” 

Och Blackie skrattar. Engelsmannen som symbol för det som USA saknar: tradition, kultur. Och på grund av denna brist och rädslan för andra kulturer och traditioner är USA på väg jorden runt för att skapa och hålla ihop sitt imperium. Blackie som symbol för ordspråket “Den som tar´t han får´t”, pionjärandans Amerika.

Stefans musik betonar också den magnetiska dragningskraft som fick Joe Hill att lämna sitt hemland Sverige för USA och dra vidare västerut från New York med ett konkret mål framför ögonen: ett jobb, tillräckligt med pengar, hyfsade livsförhållanden. Den kraft som får den amerikanska ungdomen att lifta USA runt och den europeiska att lifta till Medelhavet och Grekland. Kraften som fick Stefan Grossman att resa över hela USA, vidare till England, genom Europa och bosätta sej i Rom för att återigen ge sej av, ut på turnéer i Europa såväl som i USA. En rotlöshet, ett sökande efter ett annat, bättre liv – men ett sökande utan bestämt mål. Ditt hjärtas slag och livets musik, förhoppningsfullhetens musik.

“Vet du, det känns så rätt”, säger Stefan, “att det är just jag som gör musiken till den här filmen. Jag är uppvuxen med Joe Hill. Jag har känt till honom sen jag var liten pojk. Jag brukade alltid sjunga hans “Pie in the Sky”, det är en mina favoritsånger. I mina ögon har Joe Hill aldrig varit en hjälte, han var en människa av kött och blod, som gick med i Industrial Workers of the World och kämpade för arbetarnas rättigheter, ´organisera er´, sa han, ´sörj inte´. Han anklagades för ett mord som han inte begått, han mördades av den skrämda kapitalistklassen. Bo Widerberg låter inte heller Joe Hill framstå som en hjälte, i hans film är Joe Hill en människa som du och jag.”

Klockan har blivit tjugo i sex. Vi sitter i mixrummet och väntar på Bo, som skulle ha varit här klockan ett. Stefan tar några ackord på gitarren. Han spelar ett par låtar som jag inte hört förut, funkigt men improviserat, luftigt och lätt. Musiken är en korsning mellan amerikansk gitarrmusik – John Fahey, Robbie Basho och Sandy Bull – och engelsk – Bert Jansch, John Renbourn och Patrick Kilroy.

“Precis”, säger Stefan, “det stämmer. Jag lyssnar inte så mycket på Fahey och Basho, då känner jag mer släktskap med den engelska gitarrmusiken, särskilt Patrick Kilroy. Jag gjorde t o m en melodi som var inspirerad av honom, ´Requiem for Patrick Kilroy´. Fast jag lyssnar inte heller så mycket på engelsk gitarrmusik. Jag lyssnar på allt, jag gillar Creedence Clearwater Revival och Tyrannosaurus Rex, den senaste LP-n med Incredible String Band är också bra, efter den gick dom alldeles för högt upp i himlen för mej.”

Nu sjunger han, tyst och mjukt. “Det här är en låt av Paul Simon”, säger Stefan.

Kommer det inte att bli stora skillnader om Simon & Garfunkel byter namn och besättning till Simon & Grossman? frågar jag.

“Jo, Simon & Garfunkel är väl åkej, men, tja, det är inte riktigt min musik. Det är inte säkert det blir nåt heller, Paul Simon har massvis med idéer och han ändrar sej hela tiden.”

Bo Widerberg anländer, tittar på mej som om jag inte borde vara här och som om jag lika gärna kan försvinna direkt och då gör jag det, jag ger mej av. Filmen bör bli klar i april, eftersom Europa Film försöker förmå Widerberg att visa den på årets filmfestival i Cannes. Men Bo har ingen brådska, han arbetar i sitt eget tempo, det får ta den tid det tar. Han har tillräckliga problem med att ragga pengar för att kunna göra filmen, efter att hans amerikanska finansiär drog sej ur med motiveringen att filmen är kommunistpropagande men sen återkom igen, eftersom finansiären förstod att filmen nog skulle kunna dra in pengar, i alla fall, och inte minst på grund av att Bo Widerberg kan prata för sej, om det är något han är riktigt bra på så är det att prata.

Men det är också det enda man kan vara helt säker på när han är inblandad. Kanske premiärvisas filmen i maj, eller i höst, eller aldrig. Ingen vet, utom Bo. Till dess, minns Stefan Grossmans ord: “Det är en underbar film. Den är fantastisk.” Och, om ni vill ha dem, här är mina avslutningsord: “Vi får väl se, när och om filmen blir klar.”

(Skriven 1971 till Rolling Stone, inte publicerad, och till Expressen, publicerad i delvis annorlunda version)

This in response to a thread at IrishRepublican.net:

Some extracts on Libertarian Republicanism, and the adaptation of universalist, general ideas to local, specific contexts –

Republican ideals & Anarchist thought:

“Two substantive aspects of anarchist thought…: the alternative conception of social contract elaborated in Proudhon’s ‘mutualism’ as a way of addressing the tendency towards factions or ‘coalitions of the willing’ in international society; and the wider influence of ‘republican’ ideals of civic virtue on anarchist thinking leading to a ‘republican anarchist’ conception of the society of states – an inchoate international republicanism without the state – where state autonomy is integrated with active participation in issues concerning the ‘common good’.”
Kazmi, Zaheer. “Rethinking Anarchy: ‘Classical’ Anarchist Thought and International Society” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mar 17, 2004. 2009-04-14
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p74112_index.html

Thomas Jefferson’s “Little Republics” and the United Irishmen:

Jefferson’s proposal of the ward republic represented an attempt on his part to supply greater security to the political rights of citizens by overcoming anemia (a potential vulnerability in liberal polities) and encouraging citizen vigilance.
Webb, Derek. “Jefferson’s Ward Republic: Political Rights and an Engaged Citizenry” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, . 2009-02-05
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p139013_index.html

Thomas Jefferson idealistically remained attached to and hopeful of putting into practice his classical republican ideas. This paper analyzes Jefferson’s ward democracies and how they intended to support public education and active citizenship.
“… ward republics, which were to be divisions within each county ‘of such size as that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person’ to govern locally… Unlike many of the founders, Jefferson believed that a republic must be established on more than mere consent, and many of his republican proposals were considered by his critics to be of the ‘levelling’ sort… he was advocating his ‘little republics… where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward… and feels that he is a participant in the government… not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day…”
Dotts, Brian. “Thomas Jefferson’s Ward Republics and a Defense of Classical Republicanism” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 20, 2006 . 2009-02-05
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p138326_index.html
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/3/8/3/2/pages138326/p138326-1.php

Among the thousands of political refugees who flooded into the United States during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, none had a greater impact on the early republic than the United Irishmen. They were, according to one Federalist, “the most God-provoking Democrats on this side of Hell.” “Every United Irishman,” insisted another, “ought to be hunted from the country, as much as a wolf or a tyger.” [...]
[...] America served a powerful symbolic and psychological function for the United Irishmen as a place of wish-fulfillment, where the broken dreams of the failed Irish revolution could be realized. The United Irishmen established themselves on the radical wing of the Republican Party, and contributed to Jefferson’s “second American Revolution” of 1800; John Adams counted them among the “foreigners and degraded characters” whom he blamed for his defeat. After Jefferson’s victory, the United Irishmen set out to destroy the Federalists and democratize the Republicans. Some of them believed that their work was preparing the way for the millennium in America. Convinced that the example of America could ultimately inspire the movement for a democratic republic back home, they never lost sight of the struggle for Irish independence. It was the United Irishmen[...] who originated the persistent and powerful tradition of Irish-American nationalism.
http://www.amazon.com/United-Irishmen-States-Immigrant-Radicals/dp/0801431751

Bolton Hall & the “Free Acres” community:

“Selections from Free America and other works” Bolton Hall
(Introduction by Mark Sullivan)
(p.1) “Bolton Hall was a pioneer of what we may cal ‘alternative economics’ – what E.F. Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ ppopularized as ‘Economics as if Prople Mattered’…”
(p.2-3)”Bolton Hall was born August 5, 1854 in Ireland. He came to America in 1867 with his parents when his father had been chosen pastor of the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York… he took up the study of law, and founded the American Longshoreman’s Union. [...] He took part in other movements tending in anarchist or libertarian directions [...] Moving among these radical circles [he] eventually met Emma Goldman. Despite their differences on how best to realize a free society, they became friends and mutual supporters through thick and thin…”
http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&cPath=6&products_id=541

Founding of Free Acres
In 1910 Bolton Hall (1854-1938), a follower of Henry George, founded Free Acres. Hall’s background and intellectual predilections were strikingly similar to those of George. The son of a prominent New York City Presbyterian minister, Hall also combined religious and economic views to argue that humankind should serve as the “stewards” of the land. Hall’s philosophy is a combination of the law of love enunciated by Jesus, the economic views of Henry George, and the political rights of people defined by Thomas Jefferson.
He also followed American anarchists and antistatists in the tradition of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Brown. He was influenced by his contemporary anarchists like Russians Leo Tolstoy and Pyotr Kropotkin, Englishman William Morris and American Emma Goldman. He believed that governments generally interfere unjustly with individual liberty and should be replaced by the voluntary association of cooperative groups. He held a vision of small cooperative communities in which simple life can maximize opportunity for individual self-expression.
He founded Free Acres to serve as a working experiment in local democracy, a living testament to his beliefs. He had an abiding faith in small communities, that liberty, justice and greater equality would prevail among the face to face relationships provided by the Free Acres monthly meeting. Free Acres would be able to avoid the onerous burden of bureaucracy and the futility of civil service reform that he associated with state socialism.
http://bernard.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/free.htm

Jim Larkin, James Connolly, and the Revolutionary Syndicalism of Chicago culture & the IWW:

“The Rise & Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago’s Wildest & Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot”
Founded in 1914 by former Wobbly Jack Jones, Irish revolutionist Jim Larkin, and a group of fantastic IWW-oriented Bughouse Square hobos and soapboxers, the Dil Pickle in just a few years was widely recognized as the wildest, most playful, most creative, and most radical nightspot…
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Dil-Pickle-Outrageously/dp/088286274X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239728898&sr=8-1

Industrial workers of the World: James Connolly
First and foremost James Connolly was a Socialist. And when asked to elaborate on his Socialist theory, he would always advocate Revolutionary Syndicalism. Readers of James Connolly may react by saying that almost nowhere in Connolly’s work can any mention of Syndicalism be found. This is simply because Connolly preferred to use the term ‘Industrial Unionism’ to Syndicalism.
http://www.iww.org/en/node/900

Jack White: Anarchist & Christian Communist

Jack White proposed the idea of workers’ militia, the Irish Citizens Army (ICA) in 1913 and played a key role in its early development and organisation. In April 1916 he was arrested in south Wales for attempting to organise a strike of miners in support of James Connolly.
In 1931, White was involved in a bitter street battle between unemployed workers and the RUC on the Newtownards Road in Belfast. 1936 at the age of 57 he travelled to Spain (as part of a Red Cross ambulance crew) to help fight fascism. Here he gravitated towards the anarchist CNT.
Impressed by the revolution that had unfolded in Spain, White was further attracted to the anarchist cause due to his own latent anti-Stalinism
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/jackwhite.html

“It is a fact, that the Barcelona churches were burnt, and many of them, where roof and walls are still standing, are used to house medical or commissariat stores instead of, as previously, being used by the fascists as fortresses. I suspect their present function is nearer the purpose of a religion based by its founder on the love of God and the Neighbour.”
First Spanish Impressions, Nov. 1936
“White travelled to Bohemia… lived in a ‘Tolstoyan’ commune in England and then travelled and worked in Canada… declaring himself to be a ‘Christian Communist’. He declared that ‘he was not prepared to go forward as the representative of any class or party, but only of a principle – the voluntary change to communal ownership of the land – and – the gradual withering of the poisoned branches of standing armies, prisons and the workhouse system.’”
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/jackwhite/bio.html

Today, I got to thinking about a song kids used to sing when I was a kid that goes, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, Teacher hit me with a ruler.” Specifically, I was wondering who wrote the song, because the version I learned was long and fairly involved. Surely it could not have been the product of one or even several of the first graders I learned it from.

As near as I can tell, the song most likely was the creation of a child or children that evolved and expanded over time. According to this Wikipedia article (which actually did cite the reference I’m about to make) a version of the song existed in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England, as early as 1959. This begs the question, how has this song, and other child folkways, gotten passed along through generations and sometimes across great distances.¹

As it turns out, I am not the only one who wonders such things. During my research, I came across an interesting article by Nancy McCabe called “Glory, Glory Hallelujah, Teacher Hit Me With a Ruler: Gender and Violence in Subversive Children’s Songs” which discusses numerous children’s songs and their social implications. There are also at least two scholarly journals dedicated to the study of children’s culture, Children’s Geographies and Play and Folklore.

A further point of interest is the history of the tune the song is sung to. The melody originated in a Methodist hymn attributed to William Steffe. This hymn was adapted as a marching song by Union soldiers during the Civil War. The soldiers’ version of the song being about John Brown, was naturally referred to as “The John Brown Song” or “John Brown’s Song” and eventually became known as “John Brown’s Body.” This marching tune shows an interesting evolution in its lyrics, from an early version featuring repetitive verses and a fairly light tone (including a verse about his pet lambs.)² Later versions were more lyrically complex, featuring details of John Brown’s deeds and having a more moralistic tone.

“John Brown’s Body” inspired Julia Ward Howe to write “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” which was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1862.

The tune was further adapted in 1915 by Ralph Chaplin, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, into the labor standard “Solidarity Forever.”

But to bring it all back home with children’s folk songs I’ll leave you with these two ditties:

“Jingle bells. Batman smells. Robin laid an egg. The Batmobile lost a wheel, and Joker got away. Hey!”

“First is the worst. Second is the best. Third is the one with the hairy chest.”³

—
1. One thing that may have helped this song proliferate in its early days was the fact that in 1963 a version of it titled “The Battle Hymn of the Children” was released by Tom Glazer and the Do-Re-Mi Children’s Chorus on Kapp Records. The song was released on a 45-record as the B-side to the hit “On Top of Spaghetti” which may have its own interesting origin story. I’m holding out for some corroboration, though.

2. The light tone of this early version lends some credence to the story that the song originally was created to tease a soldier named John Brown in a Massachusetts infantry regiment, alternately cited as the 2nd or 12th. The story originates with George Kimball who recounted it in The New England Magazine in 1890.

Of course, it could have also been written by Thomas Brigham Bishop as detailed in this article from Time.

Or both of these stories could be attention grabs made by vain men. Who knows?

3. This is the version kids would sing when I was in first grade after someone else got to be first in line. The website the law of the playground has several other versions you can see here.

Folks, the Neighborhood has been in a slight transition as Mr. D is currently looking for a new car.  Long and short of it, because of a mishap on the I-95 over the weekend, it has become important to find an alternate means of transportation.   I’m currently hopping between car dealerships, doing the usual rigmarole of sitting while the salesperson “speaks to the manager” while I twiddle my thumbs thinking of the most dramatic way to leaving on an overpriced Nissan.  Thus, my mind has been distracted as of late.

No matter, let’s dive into a subject near and dear to a knife-wielding Italian like myself–labor unions.  Ah yes, to return to a time when the stubborn district superintendent could be surrounded by swarthy toughs with chair legs and ball peen hammers.  Okay, so it was never like that in the education racket, but I can dare to dream.

The New York Post, in yet another salvo at New York’s teacher union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), ran a story about my old punching bag, KIPP academies.  It seems that the teachers in two of these academies have filed with the state to kick the UFT out of their schools, citing excessive meddling in school affairs without consulting the staff beforehand.  It appears that the union filed grievances on behalf of the membership without consulting the members first, even as the UFT has been representing teachers at the school for at least 12 years.

All of the facts have not been disclosed on this, but if what is being alleged is true, then the UFT has truly overstepped its bounds and acted in an authoritarian manner.  The membership must be, at the very least, consulted in any grievance that is submitted on behalf of the entire chapter or the entire union.  That is the point of a union–to act in the best interests of the membership, led at the pleasure of the membership. 

Do not take this as meaning that Mr. D is anti-union…far from it.  As much as capitalism inspires the best in us economically, politically and entrepreneurially, it often also inspires the worst in us socially.  Societal problems are seldom profitable, but without labor unions acting as a responsible counterweight to the demands of the management, capitalism itself can collapse in chaos and conflict. 

 Note that I used the word responsible; there are too many examples of labor overstepping its boundaries just as management has often abused working people.  The Teamsters are the prime example, especially their stormy relationship with organized crime.  Many early industrial unions joined radical groups like the Industrial Workers of the World, which advocated violent revolution.  The Communist influence on unions is also well documented.  The UFT may have also stepped into this category with this incident, although the facts have yet to prove this definitively.

My hope is that the UFT can solve this problem amicably with the membership…not for nothing, but those KIPP freaks and their chanting and slogans need a good pop in the yap.  At least the UFT dental plan can cover their lost teeth.

The Tracy Trial

Back in the day on March 5th, 1917 the so-called Tracy Trial stemming from the Everett Massacre commenced. The prosecution in the two-month long court case tried to establish that Industrial Workers of the World member Thomas Tracy was responsible for firing the first shot in a confrontation between the radical unionists and Snohomish County Sheriff Don McRae and his deputies. A few months prior to the trail, hundreds of members of the IWW boarded two steamers headed for Everett, Washington from Seattle to support their fellow workers who were beaten in an attack by McRae’s men. Upon docking, the Wobblies were met by the Sheriff and his deputies who assembled to stop them from landing. After words were exchanged, a single shot was fired setting off an exchange of gunfire in which five union members were killed as well as two deputies.

The subsequent trial ended in the acquittal of Thomas Tracy and charges were dropped against 73 other IWW members. The law – not surprisingly – never sought to ponder if the first shot was fired by the Sheriff and his men.

The IWW, or the Industrial Workers of the World, is an organization dedicated to promoting workers rights through the “abolition of capitalism… [and] the wage system,” (“Preamble to the IWW Constitution.” Hereafter PIC). The IWW mission statement, for example, says “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” (ibid.) and, under that supposition, IWW members and organizers make it their mission to combat the “employing class” through all means available, when they see the employing class as exploiting the working class through unfair treatment (ibid.).  Therefore, they are willing to radically oppose employers in order to get their demands met in regard to worker’s rights.

While there have been many trade unions throughout the history of the Industrialized West, the IWW stands out as one of interest for three reasons:  First, the IWW blossomed in a time of great worker-unrest in America.  Second, women seem to have played a larger role in the IWW than in other unions of the time.  Third, the IWW is, in fact, not actual a “trade union”: instead, it relies on ‘global’ unionization of all “trades,” for the purpose of providing a solid foundation for workers’ demands.  Because of the IWW desire to organize all trades, the IWW included several primarily female ‘trades’ in its list of supporters, something which trade unions rarely did.  As a result of these three reasons, a careful examination of the role of women in the IWW will also provide great insight into the role of gender in political and worker power-struggles.

The history of the IWW began in late 1904, when eight men gathered in Chicago to plan a secret meeting for the creation of a society dedicated to the betterment of the working class.  For their second meeting, the first eight invited a total of 36 delegates (chosen for their previous demonstration of strength in the progressive/radical labor movement), of which 12 were women.  The women invited included Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (St. John).  The manifesto for the new organization which sprang from the meeting of the 36 delegates, the Industrial Workers of the World, was drafted on July 27, 1905.  Shortly thereafter, the IWW shot into action.

The lives and political actions and beliefs of Parsons, Jones and Flynn, who became great leaders of the IWW, provide insight into the attraction, for so many turn-of-the-century women, of the IWW.

Lucy Parsons, an adamant socialist and ‘Wobbly’ (a term for IWW members), stands out as a great example of a woman in the IWW.  While little is known about her earliest background, we do know that she was born in 1853.  Her ethnicity was the convergence of African, Mexican and Native roots, and, because of this, she was keenly aware of injustices in society in respect to those groups to which she belonged (Bird, Georgakas and Schaffer).  Furthermore, it is supposed that she was born into slavery, which, again, gives her an interesting perspective in regards to the injustices perpetrated by the rich on the destitute.

Over the course the first few months of 1886, in America, a great movement in support of the “8-hour day” swelled.  Lucy, married to Albert Parsons, at this time, was very active, along with her husband, in the organization of strikes for those who couldn’t convince their employers to cut hours without cutting wages.  Organizers across the country decided that, by May 1, 1886 (‘International Worker’s Day’), workers who were so inclined would demand 8-hour days without pay decrease, and if their demands were not met, they would strike.  Shortly after May 1st, when the workers’ demands were refused, over 350,000 workers, nation wide, left their jobs in one of the earliest mass strikes (a signature move of later IWW efforts).  Lucy and Albert, who were living in Chicago at the time, were witness to one of the larger components of this major strike: 40,000 Chicagoan workers struck, making their’ city one of the most active parts of this mass strike (“Lucy Parsons: Woman of Will.” Hereafter LPWOW).  However, although some few strikers managed to get their demands met, the strike was not, by any means, fully successful.  For example, on the third of May, 1886, a large mass of unarmed Chicagoan strikers were fired upon by police, killing four and wounding others.  The situation in Chicago erupted, and an emergency organizing meeting was called in Haymarket Square (one of the largest markets in Chicago, at the time).  At the meeting, an unknown (to this day) party threw a ‘bomb’ at police officers, killing one of them.  And, despite the fact that they weren’t even in attendance at the Haymarket gathering, Albert was arrested in connection with the crime, and Lucy was placed under strict police-surveillance.

Albert’s court date was set for October of the same year.  Furthermore, the police department of Chicago started rounding up other known anarchists and socialists, and detaining them for questioning.  In October, Albert was sentenced to death by hanging.  Lucy attempted to gain clemency for her husband by starting a nation-wide tour of speaking engagements where she attempted to advocate for her husband’s release.  However, police departments in many of the places she visited barred her from entering meeting halls under the supposition that she was there to incite another Haymarket type riot.  On November 11, 1887, Albert Parsons was to be executed.  Lucy attempted to bring her children to the execution, so that she, and they, could see Albert one last time.  The police, however, had other ideas: they arrested her, forced her to strip, and left her naked with her children in a cell until after Albert’s execution.  This final injustice solidified the feelings of inequality in society that Lucy had been fighting against for her whole life.  She was primed to become a leader of the radical organization of fighters like herself that would develop nearly 20 years later, the IWW.

Another way to see the solidification of Lucy Parsons qua Radical Syndicalist is through the political battles that she fought within the labor movement, itself.  For example, the Knights of Labor (hereon KoL), who had organized the Haymarket meeting, actively denied involvement in the bombing, and condemned those members of their organization who were indicted in the incident (LPWOW).  The KoL leadership was very interested in maintaining a positive relationship between the government and their organization, and they therefore saw radical acts as divisive to their cause.  Thus, Lucy and the KoL took oppositional stands in regards to radical/militant protest: the KoL taking the side of liberal, government-interactive movement, and Lucy siding with her husband, and her own conscience, in choosing powerful, radical techniques for changing inequity.  This rift widened under the pressure of the elections of 1890: the KoL and other labor organizers attempted to hitch their organizations to the Democratic Party, in an attempted symbiotic relationship.  The Democratic Party received new voters, and, in return, the KoL was promised fulfillment for some of its demands.  However, Lucy saw this relationship as non-supportive of the overall goal.  As stated earlier, Lucy was a radical syndicalist, in part, due to her early experiences of class inequality, and the inability of her own person to transcend certain ‘roles’ she was given, in association with her class/creed/race.  Lucy often denied her own African roots due to the great stigma that was (and, unfortunately sometimes, still is) associated with such lineage.  One thing that she learned from her upbringing was that people of different classes had nothing in common: and, because of this belief, she viewed the blossoming relationship between the KoL and the Dem. Party as fraternization with the enemy.

A third political motivation for Lucy Parsons’ association with more radical syndicalist movements like the IWW was her realization, in 1890, that trade unions were simply too weak to combat the incalculably more powerful employment class.  During this same time, Lucy shifted from seeing individual successful strikes as victories, towards seeing them as signs of an impending, more overarching revolution.  This revolution, she supposed, would be an international movement of anarcho-communists who would, once and for all, destroy the class that had kept all of them down for so long (LPWOW).  Lucy Parsons’ early experience as an underprivileged pseudo-citizen, her later experience of injustice in the courtroom, her political conceptualization of the working-class struggle; all of these lead to her formation as a syndicalist and as a member and leader of the soon-to-be-formed IWW.

The tumultuous nature of labor/employer relations remained a central issue for several years after Lucy Parsons’ appearance, and, during these years, Parsons’ own position of international unionization gained support in light of the politically stunted abilities of trade unions that had gone to bed with political parties who promised assistance.

Mother Jones, or Mary Harris Jones, became another female leader of the IWW movement.  She had lost her family, early in their life together (four children and her husband), to yellow fever.  Shortly thereafter, all of her possessions were burned in the fire of 1875.  From that point forward, she dedicated her life to her new ‘family’ of industrial workers who had experienced loss and hardship in a way that she saw as similar to her own tribulations (Mother Jones: ‘Pray for the Dead, and Fight Like Hell for the Living,’ hereafter MJ).  Harris Jones was born in 1830, and born into a lineage of radical political activists.  Her parents were Irish separatists, and after her father was murdered by British soldiers, she and her mother were forced to move to Canada (Hawse).  She was raised in Ontario, Canada; however she began her professional life as a teacher in Michigan.  She left teaching, which she despised, to become a seamstress after marrying her husband, George Jones, an iron molder who was involved heavily in Iron Molder’s Union activities in Chicago.

There are two competing (although non-mutually-exclusive) views of what compelled her to move into unionizing activities after the death of her husband.  Some say that her experience as a seamstress for the hoi oligoi of Chicagoan aristocracy changed her view of the ‘working class.’  Harris Jones reflected on her experiences, “Often while sewing for the lords and barons… I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front…. The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me,” (ibid.).  In contrast, other historians see Mother Jones as developing interest in ‘the movement’ after the death of her husband, as an attempt to continue the work that he, like her father, so adamantly supported (MJ).  Either way, it is a fact that Harris Jones, shortly after her tremendous loss, became a prominent figure in the worker’s rights debate.  She was a self-proclaimed Socialist, and helped found the Social Democratic Party of America in 1898, before joining the KoL (ibid.).

The KoL provided Mother Jones with a sense of unity and singularity of purpose; it allowed her to keep going, in spite of her negative experiences prior to her membership.  So, even though her house was destroyed in the fire, she felt as if she was always at home in KoL protests and meetings.  She traveled across the country, visiting shanty towns and slums, and congregating with workers in an attempt to organize/unionize them.  For example, she organized for the Union Mine Workers of America in the 1880s, and also participated in a rail worker strike in Pittsburgh a few years earlier.  Most notable, before her actions as part of the IWW, must be Harris Jones’ “Children’s Crusade:” a strike consisting entirely of children textile workers from Pennsylvania in 1903, whom she led straight to former-President Theodore Roosevelt’s estate in New York (Hawse).   Again, in a way analogous to Lucy Parsons’ own experience, Mary Harris Jones was primed by her early experiences to join the IWW during its founding in 1905: She had experience as a socialist; she was adamantly for the working class; she agreed with international unionization (as opposed to trade unionization); and she had experienced loss which grounded her vision of the class struggle.  As stated above, Harris Jones was present at the IWW’s first meeting, and was one of the twelve women to sign the manifesto (Hawse).

An apparent trend in the women involved in early IWW activities seems to be a socialist, class-identified worker’s perspective.  It can be shown that this trend holds for another early and active, female ‘Wobbly,’ Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, as well.  Gurley Flynn was born in 1890 to a family of socialist, much as the stated trend would predict.  Flynn is reported as having an early-blossoming class-consciousness: as early as age 5, Flynn saw what separated her family from those families on the “right side of the tracks,” (Licht).  She said, for example, of her home town (an industrialized Manchester, New Hampshire), that it was “where the great mills stretched like prisons along the bank of the Merrimac River,” (ibid.).  Furthermore, her father’s active role in socialist politics promoted Flynn’s own role in the same field.  She reportedly gave her first public address to a socialist meeting at age 15, on the topic of women’s roles in socialism.  In fact, her father was a great influence in her life, and was one of the original signatories to the IWW manifesto.  Gurley Flynn, herself, joined in 1906 and became increasingly active in the movement.

An interesting, and slightly divergent, element of Flynn’s story is her own recollection, recorded in a speech to the University of Illinois, of how she came to focus more primarily on the IWW instead of the socialist movement.  Flynn felt that the socialist party was led by “professors, lawyers, doctors, ministers and middle-aged and older people,” (Gurley Flynn sic).  Moreover, she thought that a real movement capable of the changes she saw fit must rely in a completely different base-constituency: change for the worker, she thought, must be made by the work of the people.  She “felt a desire to have something more militant, more progressive, and more youthful,” and she found all three in the IWW (ibid.).  Even more interesting, given Flynn’s individual case history, is her perception of the workers that she toiled for.  She saw her core audience as “transients, [with] practically no roots in the communities of the areas where they worked,” (ibid.).  It is not hard to draw a connection between her perception of her audience, and her own personal experience of having little invested in her home town.  She saw clearly the privatized interests of the mill owners and how they had encroached on her and her families own portion of the town.  Furthermore, the sentiment Flynn is expressing is easily translated into Mother Jones’ experience, insofar as Jones’ connections to Chicago, the place where she lived and worked, were literally burnt, thus freeing her to see the town and its industrial barons as being in opposition to the interests of the disenfranchised, like herself.

Having established a similarity in purpose and origins between three of the ‘founding mothers’ of the IWW, it will be easy, now, to examine the early actions of the IWW, while continuing to keep an ear to the ground for the sake of rooting out what influence these women, and many other women like them, had in the formation and forward-action of the institution, itself.

The original manifesto of the IWW’s first conference cites the growing centralization of the wealth and power into a few hands as a reason to reject trade-unionization in favor of something more powerful.  The document goes on to suggest that the working class and the employing class are completely distinct, and that they cannot mix productively without some entity to protect the less powerful workers from the more powerful employers.  Whether or not the women cited above specifically suggested this is unknown, however their backgrounds (as described above) would have certainly predisposed them to agreeing with such elements.  Furthermore, one of the earliest and most influential actions of the IWW consisted of attempting, again, after the failed efforts of the 1880’s,  to reduce work hours without pay loss for the women and children in mills and textile factories.  In analyzing this, what they called the Bread and Roses strike, a few more strong women in the IWW came to the fore.

Work in the textile mills was hard.  Most of the workers were women, and most of them were under the age of twenty (let alone the smaller, yet sizeable contingent of workers under fourteen).  The job was low paying; in fact, debt was an everyday part of life for most of the textile workers.  Some were so indebted to their own workplaces that they worked solely to pay off the debt they had already accrued the week before (Women in Textiles. Hereafter WiT).  According to one historian, although the “national life expectancy was nearly fifty years, over a third of textile workers died before twenty-six.

In Lawrence, Massachusetts, a groundswell movement to change things began around 1908.  The women in textiles were tired of being tired (as the expression goes), and yet, they were unable to find good organizers to lead them in strikes or negotiations.  That is, they were without leadership until the arrival of IWW supporters and speakers on the scene.  The first organizers, working for the textile women, were Italian socialist journalists who also worked with the IWW.  They were met with harsh resistance in the form of police brutality and restricted ‘protesting areas.’  Things did not look promising for the textile workers, and their employers seemed to brazenly defy any demands that they made.  So much was this the case that, in 1912, several mill owners cut the salaries of nearly 25,000 employees (including a great deal of women).  This time, the employers had gone too far; a full on strike of nearly all 25,000 employees took to the streets.

Mill workers (mainly women) were blocked from striking directly at their places of business: instead, they formed a human chain and attempted to encircle the entire mill district (Spicuzza).  One protestor carried a sign that said “We want Bread… and Roses, TOO,” and people came to refer to the strike as the “Bread and Roses” strike.  And yet, despite the quaint name, the strike was all but pleasant. The police assumed that, owing to the fact that the majority of the textile workers were immigrants from Europe (including a largely Italian contingent), the strikes would end quickly, as they thought those immigrants were incapable of sustained, controlled, group action: they were wrong.

On January 29, 1912, police fired on one of these sustained groups of protestors and killed a young woman named Annie Lo Pezzo. (Spicuzza) Consiglia Rocco Teutonica, a mill worker who was only fourteen years old, at the time, remembered exactly how much Lo Pezzo’s death meant to her community.  Despite the general assumption that the women were unfit to organize, the Italian immigrants had, for quite some time, been meeting in secret to discuss the progress of the “Bread and Roses” strike.  And, Rocco Teutonica recalls an organized response to the police violence: a group of Italian, women, textile workers were on their way home one late January day when they crossed a solitary policeman’s path.  Livid at the wrongful death of Lo Pezzo, the women attacked the police officer.  They took his badge and gun, cut his suspenders, and removed his pants.  The pants removal bit was, in fact, a common technique that their ‘unorganizable’ group had planned to use in just such a case.  They proceeded to hang him upside-down from the side of a bridge, pants-less, in the freezing Massachusetts winter weather!  Clearly, they could organize if they needed to. (ibid.)  After the great unrest caused by the murder of Lo Pezzo, the two original organizers were indicted on charges of inciting violence: the IWW sent in backup in the form of Bill Haywood (whose nation-wide tour, after the success of the “Bread and Roses” strike, was run by Lucy Parsons), Carlo Resca, and none other than Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.  Teutonica writes that, after the arrival of the new IWW organizers, the women were filled anew with the energy to fight back.  She describes a second time in which police arms were drawn and aimed at protesters: a younger woman ran in front of the crowd, and, while “calling the soldiers ‘Cossacks,’ [she] wrapped an American flag around her body and dared them to shoot holes in Old Glory,” (ibid.).  The police and, more importantly, the employers realized that they were fighting against something they had drastically underestimated, and they conceded to the demands (in part, but in sufficient part) of IWW organizers and the strikers in general.  The success in Lawrence was the inspiration for a whole nation of activists, socialists, and simply women in general.  According to a newspaper of the time, it was “estimated that 438,000 textile workers received nearly fifteen million dollars in raises as” a result of the strikes and organization (WiT).  Socialist and humanitarian women saw the IWW victory as a victory for women, in general, and were quick to support the IWW for many years to come: Helen Keller voiced her support, as did Margaret Sanger and Mary Kenny O’Sullivan (ibid).

What can be said about the role of women in the “Bread and Roses” strike and the IWW movement?  Clearly, they were underestimated and, at least beforehand, underappreciated.  But, the more important idea is that the IWW, and the strong, influential women who helped form and found it, were able to put into practice the things that mattered most to them.  What mattered to the IWW, given its influences in women like Flynn, Jones, and Parsons, was the general rights of the worker, the absolute refusal of the employer’s attempts to segregate workers or to down-play, or make illegal the protests which IWW members saw as the only way out.  Furthermore, IWW members wanted the worker to have power in numbers and, it is clear that, at least in the case of the Lawrence strike, they and the female mill employees they organized, did.

The participation of well-rounded, powerful, informed, civilian women in the formation and early action of the IWW is evident.  Their influences, and their own political beliefs, make themselves evident in the policy and methodology of Wobblies in general.  Furthermore, one of the first successful strikes organized by the IWW consisted mainly of women workers.  Thus, it is fair to say that women played (and, to this day, still play) a large role in the formation and management of the Industrial Workers of the World.  Also, one could say that the Industrial Workers of the World gave bright, yet unlucky, women a chance to show exactly how well they could organize, and just how much they, as women, could do on their own.

Bibliography:

Bird, Stewart., Georgakas, Dan., Shaffer, Deborah.  Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW.

Lake View Press, Chicago, 1985.

Gurley Flynn, Elizabeth.  “Memories of the Industrial Workers of the World.” Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.

8 Nov. 1962.

Hawse, Mara Lou. “Mother Jones: The Miner’s Angel.” The Illinois Labor History Society.  23 Nov. 2006

<http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/majones.htm>

Licht, Mary.  “Rebel Girl: The Revolutionary Life and Work of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.” People’s Weekly World

30 Mar. 1996

“Lucy Parsons: Woman of Will.” IWW Selected Member Biographies. 11 Nov. 2006

<http://www.iww.org/culture/biography/LucyParsons1.shtml>

“Mother Jones: ‘Pray for the Dead, and Fight Like Hell for the Living.” Joe Hill: More Labor Leaders. 11 Nov. 2006

<http://www.kued.org/joehill/faces/mother_jones.html>

“Preamble to the IWW Constitution.”  IWW: A Union For All Workers.  17. Nov. 2006

<http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml>

Spicuzza, Mary.  “Bread Winners.” Metro Santa Cruz 10 Mar. 1999.

St. John, Vincent.  The IWW: History, Structure and Methods. Chicago: IWW PB, 1917.  11 Nov. 2006

<http://www.iww.org/en/culture/official/SaintJohn1.shtml> (Online Book)

“Women in Textiles.” The Lucy Parsons Project. 11 Nov. 2006.

<http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/iww/women_in_textiles.html>

Ian Bone’s weekly ‘Anarchism In The UK’ radio show on London’s Resonance FM has now been archived on a podcast page, so even if you miss an episode’s original airing, you can stream or download it later at your own convenience

Interviews up currently include those with Ellenor Hutson (LCAP), Si Mitchell (Guerillavision), Paul Stott (‘9/11 truth’ debunker) and Sandy Hale (Liberty & Solidarity); older interviews with the likes of John Rety, Phil Ruff and Martin Wright will be added as soon as possible.

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Starbucks is once again before the U.S. National Labor Relations Board related to charges of attempting to unlawfully thwart unionization efforts.

From the Seattle Times:

The union lumps keep coming for Starbucks, which was thumped by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month for unfair labor practices at several New York cafes.

Last week, the company settled a separate NLRB dispute in Michigan and on Wednesday is to begin proceedings there in a third case in which it allegedly fired a barista because of his union activities.

All three cases were initiated by baristas affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a century-old union that has worked for several years to improve conditions for Starbucks workers.

In New York, an administrative-law judge with the NLRB said last month that work rules were unfairly imposed on employees who supported the union. The coffee chain was ordered to give back jobs to three former workers and compensate them for lost earnings. The company also must post notices informing employees of their labor-organizing rights.

Starbucks plans to appeal the ruling, according to spokeswoman Tara Darrow.