IWW

I do not say that all things that eco-groups do are bad. But we tend to follow the direction of groups that do not have the same interests as ours. Because of this we get burdened with baggage harmful to our class. For this reason and many others, we need to develop our own form of environmentalism based on working class interests.

Grand Rapids, MI (06/06/2008) - Starbucks terminated a barista active in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union today as part of its ongoing effort to combat a growing movement of employees pushing for a living wage and secure work hours. The barista, Cole Dorsey, was fired after two years of service while he was coordinating a union recruitment drive at Starbucks stores in Grand Rapids.

Day to protest recent firing of CNT member in Spain and continuing anti-union discrimination in Grand Rapids

May 28, 2008

Flaum Appetizing, a kosher food distributor, terminated 20 IWW members last week. The IWW had a strong presence at Flaum, with about two-thirds of the warehouse being union members. Workers had been struggling for respect from the boss for almost a year before the firings occurred.

IWW launches second phase of fight against blood service centralisation plans.

The IWW is fighting the closure of 10 blood processing centres across England. This is the largest campaign yet attempted by the IWW in the UK (the BIROC), and has led to large scale regional mobilisations, and the distribution of 55,000 leaflets and 5000 targeted workplace bulletins.

The One Big Union was founded a mere two months before it was baptized by the Winnipeg General Strike. The founding Convention was held in the Calgary Labour Temple (which still stands today, though it has been converted into a Chinese Restaurant).

In May of 1919 a heat wave crossed the province. Edmonton had reached temperatures of 85 degrees. Like the heat wave a mood of union militancy was in the air across Alberta, indeed across Western Canada. A strike wave would soon erupt sweeping the West like a prairie fire.

"It was perhaps a natural development that one of the strongest branches of the Advocates of Industrial Unionism should be in the Singer Sewing Machine Works at Kilbowie, Clydebank, which employed some 12,000 workers. Singers was primarily an American firm, but it had established itself in Europe, and exerted an effective monopoly in the manufacture of sewing machines.