IWW

The Sisters' Camelot Canvass Union is asking supporters to call/text/email the remaining Sisters' Camelot collective members demanding they turn over information regarding their contractually owed back wages. For weeks, the striking canvassers have been confronting their bosses requesting this information. The wages owed to them come from their share of online donations. The collective has not paid the canvassers share of these funds since October 2012.

1. Ask they turn over information for online donations and 'call backs' to the Canvass Union.

2. If they say they don't have access to the information because the only person with access has not been responding to other collective members phone calls for the last several weeks, remind them they can contact PayPal and Network for Good themselves requesting access to the information.

3. If they say the canvassers contracts do not explicitly say they are owed these funds, remind them this has been policy at Sisters' Camelot for many years, regardless of how vague the contracts are worded.

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By x363464 - May 16, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In 1950, Chevron, General Motors, and Firestone were charged and convicted of criminal conspiracy for their part in the General Motors streetcar conspiracy. In this scandal they purchased streetcar systems all over the United States in order to disassemble the industry and create bus lines. They did this to increase the demand for petroleum, automobiles and tires so that they could directly receive business and profits from their scheme.  Later Chevron began investing in alternative industries such as lithium car batteries. Chevron began to be limiting access to large NiMH batteries through its control of patent licenses. Many suspect they did this to remove a competitor to gasoline and suspicions were affirmed when Chevron began a lawsuit against Panasonic and Toyota because they started producing EV-95 batteries for electric cars.

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From greensboroiww.org

Last week, the Greensboro IWW achieved a swift and valuable win that illustrated the power of solidarity and direct action. A branch member had been unjustly fired from his job at New York Pizza on Tate Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. This fellow worker was owed more than $1100, including unpaid overtime and off-the-clock work, as well as money that was improperly deducted from his pay for rejected food and register shortages.

On Monday, May 6th, this fellow worker, accompanied by another branch member, delivered a letter to the boss from the Greensboro IWW, demanding payment in full by Friday. The branch was prepared to leaflet and picket at the location if our fellow worker did not receive his wages in full.

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From iww.org.uk

We, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) want to express our deep concern and strong condemnation of the unfair dismissal of Oscar Alvarez, Union Representative of the IWW at the West Perivale garage.

Oscar Alvarez has been a London bus driver for 8 1/2 years. He reached the 10th position nationwide in Blackpool Best Bus Driver of the Year 2007 competition, which to date is still unbeaten by any Metroline driver. But Oscar’s sacking is far from being an isolated occurrence. This is part of an escalating wave of sackings on the buses over the last few years, which has seen all London bus companies imposing terrible contracts on new starters, often without union agreement or any serious attempt to fight this ‘race to the bottom’.

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By x356039 - May 2, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In the accepted limits of debate in Washington and Wall Street the main argument by proponents of the fossil fuel industry is the same as its always been: do you want to protect the environment or create more jobs? They argue expanding fossil fuel exploitation, in spite of the proven risks to the environment and public health, is necessary for the sake of job creation. By building Keystone XL across the Great Plains, opening the Powder River Basin to coal interests, expanding offshore drilling, and opening up new lands to fracking the fossil fuel dinosaurs claim our economy will recover & energy independence will be achieved. When confronted with the facts on clean energy sources like wind and solar power fossil fuel proponents argue clean energy is too expensive. They claim it would not be cost-effective to build a green energy economy and that it would lead to a decline in standard of living.

Quite contrary to the boldest of claims made by those dinosaurs the facts show shifting to a clean energy economy would create more jobs, cost less money, and easily exceed all performance needs. Research by the Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley shows the fossil fuel industry's claims of better job creation rates compared to green, clean energy are vastly overblown. As shown in this chart below renewable energy sources produce as many if not more jobs per megawatt of capacity as traditional dirty sources of electricity:

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On Thursday, May 2 the Sisters' Camelot managing collective posted a long public statement on the internet addressing the current standoff between them and our striking union of canvass workers. Their statement is full of inaccurate information. Below are the most egregious inaccuracies, each with a concise explanation of the truth.

1. Sisters' Camelot: “We operate as an egalitarian democracy where no one member has a larger voice than any other, and all participate equally in the decision-making process. Anyone in the in the community – including the canvassers – can become a member of our collective and therefore have a full voice in its operations.”

THE TRUTH: The collective has refused to allow some canvassers to join the collective when they showed interest. Other canvassers have decided the collective has been hostile towards them and the canvass in general. Many canvassers who have tried addressing canvass-related grievances through the collective process equate it to banging their head against a brick wall. Some canvassers are unable to attend Monday morning meetings because of obligations as parents, students, and workers at other jobs. The 6 collective members have hiring and firing power over us and the collective process has failed to address the grievances of canvassers, so we unionized to bring balance to the power dynamic in our workplace. Telling us to use the collective process is classic boss speak for telling workers they should go through pre-existing channels instead of unionizing.

2. SC: “After the group gave a list of demands (some, but not all, being reasonable), they gave the collective one hour to meet their demands. If not, they declared they would strike.”

THE TRUTH: In our first meeting with the managing collective after unionization, we (the union) carefully went through our demands and allowed them an hour to ask any clarifying questions about them. They chose to only ask a couple questions, using about 5 minutes worth of their allotted hour. Then we gave the collective another hour to discuss in private and expected negotiation to begin after that. We stated very clearly that we did not expect negotiations to finish that day; we just wanted them to move forward in good faith. We stated that we did not expect to get all of our demands; that many of them were flexible, and as long as negotiations went ahead in good faith we would not strike. The managing collective simply refused to negotiate with our union.

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Fellow Workers and Friends: the IWW bids the workers of the world everywhere a happy May Day, International Workers Day!

There are likely May Day events happening in your community or a community near you!

We cannot (yet) hope to keep track of or list them all, but we're doing the best we can.

One good central resource is our Facebook Page, where we have attempted to share any May Day events organized or endorsed by various IWW branches, and--failing that--events in which IWW members are actively participating.

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Headlines:

• IWW Liquor Store Workers Fired For Union Activity
• Sisters’ Camelot Workers Continue Strike
• Star Tickets Workers Face Retaliation

Features:

• The Struggle Continues In Wisconsin: Two Years And Counting
• May Day Special: The Global Fightback Against Austerity
• The IWW And Earth First!: Establishing Roots

Download a Free PDF of this issue.

Happy May Day, Fellow Workers!

This Wednesday morning Sisters’ Camelot, a non-profit mobile food shelf engaged in a two-month-lo...ng strike of its canvass workers, rejected a settlement offer from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), opting instead to fight the union in court. In order to do so, they have hired a right-wing, professional “union-avoidance” attorney, John C. Hauge from FordHarrison, a nation-wide anti-labor law firm, shocking the striking canvassers of the progressive organization. Concerned that Hauge is seeking to set precedent against independent contractors’ rights, the canvassers are seeking support from other unions and organizations.

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From the Industrial Worker

Happy Earth Day fellow workers! To celebrate, Wobblies in the Bay Area today protested the Keystone XL pipeline. Read more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/247835108693864/

From Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse

As some of you know, someone walked into Red Emma's yesterday and pepper-sprayed two of our worker-owners, as well as the entire front counter, and grabbed a cell phone and ran. This wasn't a random act of violence, this is someone who robbed us last year, and then kicked in our door. We don't know for sure, but it's possible this is the same person who smashed the glass in our front door twice last month.

Thankfully, no one has been seriously injured in these attacks, and the store has been thoroughly decontaminated. But the store can only stand up to so much beating ... and the same is true of the workers. In the past month, we've lost over $1,000 in damages, lost business, stolen property, and pepper-spray-contaminated food.

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On April 1st, 5 workers were fired at Chicago-Lake Liquors, Minnesota's highest volume liquor store, for asking for better wages. Two days prior, they presented a petition signed by co-workers to management asking for a $1 raise in the starting wage from $8 an hour to $9 an hour, an across the board $1 raise, and a raise in the starting wage from $10.50 an hour to $13.

The five fired workers, Joe Giwoyna, Davis Ritsema, Max Specktor, Arella Vargas, and Hallie Wallace went public as members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Food & Retail Workers United, an organizing committee of the IWW.

They have filed Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs) with the National Labor Relations Board and have been doing actions at Chicago Lake Liquors demanding they be rehired, that their wage demands be met, and that their bosses stop union busting.

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On April 1st, 5 workers were fired at Chicago-Lake Liquors, Minnesota’s highest volume liquor store, for asking for better wages. Two days prior, they presented a petition signed by co-workers to management asking for a $1 raise in the starting wage from $8 an hour to $9 an hour, an across the board $1 raise, and a raise in the starting wage from $10.50 an hour to $13.

The five fired workers, Joe Giwoyna, Davis Ritsema, Max Specktor, Arella Vargas, and Hallie Wallace went public as members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Food & Retail Workers United, an organizing committee of the IWW.

They have filed Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs) with the National Labor Relations Board and have been doing actions at Chicago Lake Liquors demanding they be rehired, that their wage demands be met, and that their bosses stop union busting.

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From the Indiana IWW

Wobblies showing solidarity at the Indiana University (IU) strike! In all we had 21 FWs come out to IU Bloomington to support the effort.

From the Indiana IWW

Wobblies showing solidarity at the Indiana University strike! In all we had 21 FWs come out to IU Bloomington to support the effort.

MINNEAPOLIS-- The labor dispute at Sisters’ Camelot took a new turn this week, as serious negligence and illegal activity by the Sisters’ Camelot managing collective was uncovered by the IWW Sisters’ Camelot Canvass Union. On April 10 two canvass union members conducted a routine search on the Minnesota Secretary of State and Attorney General’s websites to access publicly available legal documents. To their surprise, Sisters’ Camelot was not listed on either website, and they placed a call to both departments inquiring why. What they discovered was shocking: Sisters’ Camelot is not listed on these websites because it is not considered a legitimate organization by the state of Minnesota.

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The Sisters' Camelot Canvass Union has been on strike since March 1st. One of the striking workers was fired while on strike, and they have refused to sit down and negotiate with the union.

Here are the names, phone numbers, & email addresses of each member of the management of Sisters' Camelot.

Call, text, and email them every day. Here are the talking points and guidelines:

1. Urge them to rehire the fired worker and negotiate with the union.

2. Remind them that the world is watching and knows that they are responsible for this strike.

3. Ask them to resign if they are not willing to negotiate with a union.

4. Please do not make any threats.

The Sisters' Camelot Collective
Office phone number: 612-746-3051
Email Address: sisterscamelot@gmail.com

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The I.W.W. Sisters' Camelot Canvass Union has been on strike now for 39 days, since management refused to recognize their right to unionize and negotiate with the worker's union. Last week the striking worker's union offered management a package deal in hopes of ending the strike and returning to work. In this deal all issues related to pay were taken off the table, leaving only the bare minimum terms needed by the workers to have enough workplace democracy to end the strike. This offer included 8 of the original 18 terms of unionization intended to be worked out at the negotiating table.

Since the canvassers at Sisters Camelot went public as a union, the management has simply refused to attempt any negotiation to recognize the workers right to be unionized, and even illegally fired a union member in retaliation. This last deal was an attempt by the canvass union to offer the management the easiest possible deal for them to accept so canvassers can return to work and continue discussion about the issues they took off the table at a later time.

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