From culturex@vcn.bc.ca Thu May 1 14:39:01 1997 by vcn.bc.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA05806; Thu, 1 May 1997 13:38:52 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:38:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley Subject: May Day! (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 13:15:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley To: CONSTITUTION@websightz.com, Ftr_Cities@websightz.com Subject: May Day! Subject: Re: SNET: Conspiracy Theory Research List (CTRL) On Thu, 1 May 1997 RoadsEnd@aol.com wrote: (somewhat modified by FWP). > MAYDAY MAYDAY > _______________________________________ > |_______________________________________| > |_______________________________________| > |_______________________________________| > |_______________________________________| > |_______________________________________| > |_______________________________________| > | * * * * * * * *|_______________________| > | * * * * * * |_______________________| > | * * DIRECT ELECTRONIC * *|_______________________| > | * * DEMOCRACY * * |_______________________| > | * * * * * * * *|_______________________| > | * * * * * * * *|_______________________| > > MAYDAY MAYDAY > > ========================================================================= > A new list for your mail box reading and discussing pleasure - > > Conspiracy Theory Research List (CTRL) > > Write to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM and, in the text of your message (not > the subject line), write: SUBSCRIBE CTRL From porudy@ucdavis.edu Thu May 1 15:30:57 1997 Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 14:30:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Preston Rudy To: Labor Research and Action Project Subject: Re: EI in union vs non-union settings In-Reply-To: Ruth Milkman's new book on the Linden, NJ GM plant (U Calif Press) is another look at a unionized worksite, but has interesting observations about participatory work regimes and the worker's reactions to them. Cheers, Preston Rudy, Dept of Sociology, University of California, Davis CA 95616 porudy@ucdavis.edu On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Donald J. Pratt wrote: > Hello. I am interested in knowing if anyone out there is familiar with > research relevant to a comparison of employee involvement programs in > unionized and non-unionized workplaces. In particular, I am wondering > if there is any significant difference in successful outcomes (however > you want to define that). WORKER PARTICIPATION AND AMERICAN UNIONS: > THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY by Kochan, Katz, and Mower is interesting, but > only looks at the unionized situation. > > Thanks, > > Don Pratt Sociology Department > donjprat@syr.edu Syracuse University > > =GO RED WINGS!= From jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us Thu May 1 16:32:19 1997 Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 15:46:27 -0800 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us (Julia Stein) Subject: Re: labor poetry/Liverpool dockers >>------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 22:05:28 -0700 (PDT) >>Reply-to: Conference "labr.party" >>From: Labor Video Project >>Subject: WOW On The Radio On April 30/May1 >>To: Recipients of conference >> >>From: Labor Video Project >> >>/* Written 6:05 PM Apr 29, 1997 by lvpsf in igc:labr.maritime */ >>/* ---------- "WOW On The Radio On April 30/May1" ---------- */ >> WOW ON THE RADIO >> >> >>Liverpool "Women Of The WaterFront" On The Radio >> >> >> Sueson Mitchell and Colette Melia, two members of "Women Of The >>Waterfront" from Liverpool are touring the US and will be on a number >>of radio programs on the west coast. They are wives of Liverpool dockers >>who have been on strike for more than 2 years against privatization, >>deregulation, casualization and the right to abide by a picket line. >> >>RADIO SHOWS >> >>Wednesday April 30, 1997 >>9:00-10:00 AM Radio Free Berkeley at 104.1 FM In Berkeley >> >>5:00-6:00 PM On Flash Points KPFA at 94.1 FM >> >>Thursday May 1, 1997 >>7:00-7:30 PM KPFK 90.7 FM with Jim Lafferty in Los Angeles >> >>The May Solidarity Events include: >> >>May 1, 1997 >>3:00 PM Speaking at a rally of striking SEIU 250 VNH Health Care workers >>973 Market St. San Francisco >> >>7:30 PM Solidarity Rally New College 777 Valencia St. San Francisco >>For Information on San Francisco Tour call 415-282-1908 >> >>May 2, 1997 >>10:30-12:15 AM South West Labor Studies Conference CSU Dominguez Hills >>College >>Room SBS-B231 >>1000 Victoria St., Carson CA >> >>May 3, 1997 7:00 PM Solidarity Rally Los Angeles With IWLU 26 President >>Luisa Gratz, Poets Julia Stein and Carol Tarlen >>HERE Local 11 321 South Bixel St Los Angeles >> >>For Further Information On The Los Angeles Tour Call 818-568-1147 >> >>May 4, 1997 7:30 PM Solidarity Rally In Oakland,CA with RubberStampede >>Representatives and ILWU 6 President Larry DeGatano >>ILWU Local 6 99 Hegenberger St. Oakland CA >> >> >>Check Out The Liverpool Dockers WEB Page at www.labournet.org.uk/docks >>For Further Information On The US Tour Write >>ILC/International Committee For The Victory Of The Liverpool Dockers >>P.O.Box 40458 >>San Francisco,CA 94140 >>415-282-1908 >>Email: lvpsf@labornet.org >>Contributions For The Cost Of The Tour Can be made out to ILC/Liverpool >>at the above address >> >> 'SOLIDARITY HAS NO BORDERS!" >> >> > >Julia Stein >jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us > > > > Julia Stein jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us From culturex@vcn.bc.ca Thu May 1 18:50:40 1997 Thu, 1 May 1997 16:44:14 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 16:44:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley Subject: May Day and the W.O.C. To: labor-l@yorku.ca, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, publabor@relay.doit.wisc.edu, united@cougar.com, union-d@wolfnet.com Happy May Day! Some time I would like to compare notes with labour economists on the parameters of a "WOC". My doctorate is in philosophy/psychology but I have undergrad. training up to and including the intermediate level in sociology, finance, financial accounting, and managerial accounting. Once the WOC paramters are known by labour leaders they can also be used as "bargaining pieces"...ie "Unless______ we can always form our own fully self-sufficient worker-owned economies and tell you in WTO/NAFTA/GATT/MAI etc. to go to hell." FWP. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 16:18:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley To: Tor Forde Ftr_Cities@websightz.com Subject: Re: Electricity and the church. On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Tor Forde wrote: (big clip). > I guess this is a protest against the destructive development that Norway > is in. with exploding poverty. Poverty in Norway is increasing much faster > than in England, and this in a time when the country is filled with > riches. Norway does not have defecit budgets. Because of the oil revenue .... > The Church is confronted by The New Religion, the worship of the holy > free market, which everything is being sacrificed to, and it looks like > the church will stand up against this new religion. Good for them. Now ask them to take the Mondragon model of the worker-owned company (I am sure you can find the web site) and extend it to the Worker Owned Conglomerate. The WOC, fully developed starts with a stock-pile of cheap starting materials/raw materials and works it into all of the amenities of the modern life style. It is immune to the predations of international traders (WTO/MAI/GATT/NAFTA...whatever). If Pacciolo, a monk, can develop the double entry accounting system, the clergy of Norway can work this out. FWP. From donjprat@mailbox.syr.edu Sat May 3 10:07:10 1997 for ; Sat, 3 May 1997 12:07:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 12:07:07 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald J. Pratt" Reply-To: "Donald J. Pratt" To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Thanks Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for references on EI in union and non-union settings. The information was most helpful. Don Pratt donjprat@syr.edu From dmoberg@igc.apc.org Mon May 5 10:25:20 1997 for ; Mon, 5 May 1997 08:54:03 -0700 (PDT) by igc2.igc.apc.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA06242 for Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 5 May 1997 08:52:15 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 08:52:15 -0700 (PDT) From: David Moberg To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: bonded labor From aikya@ix.netcom.com Tue May 6 21:12:36 1997 by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id sma018700; Tue May 6 22:12:15 1997 From: "Ms. Aikya Param" To: "'Labor Research and Action Project'" , "'united@cougar.com'" Subject: FW: now-action-list CALL-IN TO SUPPORT PROTECTIONS FOR WELFARE WORKERS Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 20:01:33 -0700 Your action is urgently needed. Aikya Param Publisher Women and Money ---------- Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 1997 2:38 PM To: now-action-list@now.org; newsletter-editors@now.org Subject: now-action-list CALL-IN TO SUPPORT PROTECTIONS FOR WELFARE WORKERS >From the National Organization for Women Action Center: SPECIAL ACTION ALERT May 6, 1997 CALL-IN TO SUPPORT PROTECTIONS FOR WELFARE WORKERS Your immediate help is needed during a national Call-In to President Clinton to urge protection for welfare recipients placed in workfare slots. The president will soon decide whether these welfare recipients should be covered by the same protections that other workers enjoy. Reports from various states indicate that recipients in workfare jobs face below- minimum wages, unsafe working conditions, no protection against discrimination, and little opportunity for advancement. One report from New York City indicates that hundreds of welfare recipients have been put to work in city parks -- "working off" what would have been their welfare check (which amounts to below minimum wage) and are not being supplied with proper equipment or training. These same folks, incidentally, have effectively displaced low wage workers -- many of whom are now looking for other employment. Laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) offer protection for workers against being paid unfair wages, exposed to dangerous or unhealthy working conditions, or suffering discrimination without recourse. Provisions in the new welfare law either attempt to circumvent these fundamental protections or are unclear as to whether federal labor and safety laws would apply in various circumstances. Therefore, it is critical that the president issue guidelines to the states indicating that workfare participants need safe and healthy working conditions, protections against discrimination, a decent wage, and access to training and support services on the job. We need to deluge the White House with messages on this issue, because the president has been lax in advocating proper services and supports for welfare recipients. President Clinton's recent lack of follow-through to encourage states to adopt the Family Violence Provision is one indication that he is not sufficiently committed to making the welfare-to-work process succeed. (To address that void, activists are now pressing for legislation to clarify waiver authority for states for welfare recipients experiencing domestic violence.) Advocates are focusing many calls for Wednesday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., EST; however, you may call at any time. Just please call soon and get other activists to make the call as well. Who to Call: Erskine Bowles, Chief of Staff at 202-465-1111. Message: Give workfare workers equal treatment -- extend to them the same labor, health, safety, and civil rights protections that all other American workers enjoy! White House email: president@whitehouse.gov ================================================== now@now.org To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@now.org with the text: unsubscribe now-action-list or connect to http://www.now.org/actions/ Please *do* unsubscribe yourself before cancelling your e-mail account. Visit the NOW Web site at http://www.now.org/ Please support these efforts by joining NOW. You can do so on our Web site. From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Tue May 6 23:56:36 1997 Tue, 6 May 1997 22:49:36 -0700 (PDT) Tue, 6 May 1997 22:49:00 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 22:49:00 -0700 (PDT) To: united@cougar.com, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Petition to American Airlines Sender: meisenscher@igc.org >Subject: Petition to American Airlines > ><< Subject: FWD: Gay civil rights petition - Forwarded > > > > > > If you agree...add your name to the bottom of the list and forward it on > > to everyone you know! > > > > BACKGROUND: > > American Airlines is a major sponsor to and supporter of > > groups like GLADD, the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay > > and Lesbian Victory Fund, the AIDS Action Foundation, > > DIFFA, AmFAR, and scores of community-based groups > > representing gays and lesbians. It is also the first airline to > > adopt a written non-discrimination policy covering sexual > > orientation in its employment practices. > > > > In an unusual joint letter was released to the media on > > Friday, March 14th from the Family Research Council, > > Concerned Women of America, American Family > > Association and Coral Ridge Ministries. Radical right leader > > Beverly LaHaye also went on Christian "talk radio" on Friday > > to blast American Airlines because "American's sponsorship > > of homosexual 'pride' events constitutes an open > > endorsement of promiscuous homosexuality." She and the > > other groups have written Bob Crandall at American to > > complain that the airline has "gone beyond mere tolerance" > > of gays and lesbians. The full article appeares in Friday's > > Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and possibly picked up by other > > newspapers around the country. > > > > It has come to the attention of the gay and Lesbian > > community that American Airline's switchboard and e-mails > > are being bombarded now by homophobic and hateful callers > > who have been urged by LaHaye and others to DEMAND the > > company terminate its gay-friendly policies. > > -------------------------------- > > ***if you are the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, etc. person to sign > > this petition then please forward this to American Airlines at: > > Webmaster@amrcorp.com *** > > > > To American Airlines: We, the undersigned, support your > > gay/lesbian rights polices and commend you for your efforts > > in ending discrimination. Thank you for your dedication to > > such issues and please continue to remain active in the > > struggle to end discrimination. > > > > 1. Marybeth Kurtz, Philadelphia, PA > > 2. Jen Faust, Goucher College, Balto. MD > > 3. Heather Riley, UMBC, Balto., MD > > 4. Katy Schuman, UMBC, Balto., MD > > 5. Rebekka Gold, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > > 6. Danielle Hirsch, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > > 7. Jerrod Wendland, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > > 8. Jon Morgan, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. > > 9. Keri Rainsberger, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > > 10. Cheryl Lynn Bates, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > > 11. Court Singrey, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > > 12. Carol Fischer, Indiana University, Bloomington IN. > > 13. Alitza Rueber, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA. > > 14. Jennifer S. Allen-Lanfdon, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA > > 15. Laura J. Henry, Iowa City, IA > > 16. Larry Bierce, Omaha, NE > > 17. Jay Palmer, Omaha, NE > > 18. Jim McMahon, Los Angeles, CA > > 19. Chun Lin, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > > 20. Phil Jessel, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > > 21. Steve Karlman, Chicago, IL > > 22. Joe Kinsella, Albuquerque, NM > > 23. Mata Binteris, IIT Chicago-Kent, Chicago, IL > > 24. Dana Kurtz, IIT Chicago-Kent, Chicago, IL > > 25. Brenn Baker, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority >Chicago, > > IL > > 26. Pam Baker, Lincoln, NE > > 27. Jeanne Baer, Lincoln, NE > > 28. Gina Matkin, Lincoln, NE > > 29. Dalanne L. Podenski, Lincoln, NE > > 30. Tammy L. Collins, Lincoln, NE > > 31. Margaret Jackson, Danbury, CT > > 32. Linda Yedloski, Wilkes-Barre, PA > > 33. Laurie Riccobono, Analomink, PA > > 34. Barry Walden, Seattle, WA and Phoenix, AZ > > 35. Jeffrey Senna, San Francisco, Califorina > > 36. Ken Emery, San Francisco, CA > 37. Alexandria Alvarez, San Fransisco CA > 38. Michalene Adams, San Jose, CA > 39. Janet Poses, Menlo Park, CA > 40. David Huff, Downey, CA > 41. Michael Sopkiw Los Angeles, CA > 42. Eda Godel Hallinan, Los Angeles, CA 43.Phyllis Willett, Berkeley, CA 44. Michael Eisenscher, Oakland, CA From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Wed May 7 00:13:18 1997 Tue, 6 May 1997 23:12:35 -0700 (PDT) Tue, 6 May 1997 23:12:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 23:12:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Eisenscher To: united@cougar.com, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: 10th Grade S Afr Child Faces Death Row in Mississippi (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 21:40:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Schaffner To: CMitch5575@AOL.COM Subject: 10th Grade S Afr Child Faces Death Row in Mississippi (fwd) >Return-Path: >To: dsa@igc.org, dsa-youth@igc.apc.org, dsanet@quantum.sdsu.edu, > tankboy@earthlink.net, SocNet@home.ease.lsoft.com, > SLDRTY-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU, jhurd_newparty@indiana.edu, > amerabo@world-net.sct.fr >Subject: 10th Grade S Afr Child Faces Death Row in Mississippi (fwd) >X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-7,9-12,15-16,21-22,28-29,35-36,40-41,49-50,57-58, > 64-65,70-74,79-80,82-97,100-101,106-108 >From: jschulman@juno.com (Jason A Schulman) >Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 12:15:08 EDT >Sender: owner-jhurd_newparty@indiana.edu > > >FORWARDED MESSAGE - UPDATED INFO ON THIS TRAGIC CASE >WILL BE PRESENTED AT THE SATURDAY, MAY 3RD CONFERENCE, >9:00 A.M. TO 6:00 P.M., AFSC, 15TH & CHERRY STS., PHILA., PA. >===================================================== > >NCADP "STOP KILLING KIDS!" ALERT: > >INTERNATIONAL ACTION NEEDED TO KEEP S. AFRICAN BOY OFF OF DEATH ROW - >PLEASE ACT NOW! PLEASE FORWARD! > >CASE BRIEF: > >After surviving some of Apartheid's most turbulent years, a South African >child faces the death penalty in Mississippi for a crime in which he was >little more than a bystander. > >Azikiwe Kambule came to the United States two years ago with his mother. >Azi had no trouble adjusting academically; he received excellent grades, >was placed in honors classes and joined the school choir. Yet, Azi >found himself under immense social pressure--he didn't look, speak or >dress like other children in his neighborhood. > >Azi wanted to "fit in" with his peers, and not be the subject of their >ridicule. He met and started spending time with youth who were older and >very street-wise. When Azi's grades began to drop, his parents began to >worry that his new friends were the wrong crowd. Fearing the worst, they >decided to scrape together the funds to send Azi to a boarding school. >Tragically, it was already too late. > >One evening, Azi found himself in the middle of a car-jacking in which a >young African-American woman was killed. Azi himself was so far away >from the crime scene that he did not hear the gunshots. When arrested, >he was the only one to cooperate with the police. He fully explained the >terrible series of events and tried repeatedly to help the authorities in >their investigation. > >Despite having no criminal record, no history of violence, being merely a >bystander and providing his full cooperation, Azi has been charged as an >accomplice to capital murder. Mississippi is seeking the death penalty >against Azi, a child in the tenth grade. > >The situation in which Azi finds himself speaks volumes about the use of >the death penalty against children. During this decade, only five >nations in the world are known to have executed persons for crimes they >committed when under 18-years-old. Those countries are Iran, Pakistan, >Yemen, Saudi Arabia . . . and the United States. Of these five, America >has executed the most. A condemned child in the United States also tends >to be of darker hue -- 66% of those persons sentenced to death as >children have been from racial minorities. > >And nowhere is the international rule of law more clear than the >prohibition on the use of the death penalty against children. The >International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United >States has ratified, clearly states that the "sentence of death shall not >be imposed for crimes committed by persons below the age ofeighteen." >Indeed, every major human rights treaty in the world has the same express >wording. > >Azi sits today in a Mississippi jail cell, with his life hanging in the >balance. The District Attorney wishes to seal Azi's fate, and is quoted >in the local newspaper as saying that because the "jurors in >[predominantly black] Hinds County have a reputation for refusing to vote >for the death penalty," he moved Azi's trial to a predominantly white >county where the outcome would be more certain, if not predictable. > >Azi is a child who has suffered from human rights abuses throughout his >brief life -- first in South Africa, and now in the United States. Yet, >the errors in his childhood should not prove fatal. He deserves our >passion--not poison. Please join the National Coalition to Abolish the >Death Penalty in our efforts to save Azi's life. > >4 THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO HELP SAVE AZI: > >1) FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND PRESS CONTACTS >2) WRITE THE D.A.: ---Azi is a South African child who has no history of >violence or prior run-ins with the law; was so far away from the murder >that he did not even hear the gun shots; and has fully cooperated with >the police. There is no reason why DA Kitchens should be seeking to kill >him or put him behind bars for the rest of his life! > >JAMES KITCHENS, ESQ. / MADISON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY/P.O. BOX 121/ >CANTON, MS 39046/ (601) 859-8880-fax /(601) 859-7838-phone. > >3)MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: Please contact the following news organizations: > >--Clarion-Ledger Newspaper >letters@jackson.gannett.com > >--WLBT T.V. News >WLBT@teclink.com > >--Jackson Advocate Newspaper (Black owned & operated) >300 N.Farish Street >Jackson,MS 39202 >1(601) 948-4125--fax > > >IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION OR ARE INTERESTED IN HELPING TO RAISE >MONEY FOR AZI'S DEFENSE PLEASE CONTACT THE NCADP AT "NCADP1@aol.com" or >1-800-347-2411, ext.5 > >NOTE: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) was >founded in 1976. Our affiliates include several large civil rights, >religious and political organizations, and over 100 state and local >anti-death penalty groups. We are located at 918 F.Street, NW >Washington, DC 20024. Our phone number is 1(202) 347-2411. > >Jackie Austin > > From kjsciacc@facstaff.wisc.edu Wed May 7 06:42:03 1997 Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 07:41:55 -0500 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: kjsciacc@facstaff.wisc.edu (Katherine Joan Sciacchitano ) Subject: Re: bonded labor this message was blank. where is it? From shostaka@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Wed May 7 16:03:10 1997 Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 17:12:20 -0500 To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu From: Art Shostak Subject: Opportunity Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 11:02:47 -0500 Reply-To: irra@relay.doit.wisc.edu Originator: irra@relay.doit.wisc.edu Sender: irra@relay.doit.wisc.edu From: Subject: STAFF ASSOCIATE -- George Meany Center for Labor Studies The George Meany Center for Labor Studies, a year-round residential educational and training facility for AFL-CIO affiliates, seeks two full-time staff associates effective immediately. Applicants must have experience on an international/national, regional, local, council or state level as an organizer, negotiator, labor educator or in combination. Demonstrated union experience in organizing/contract campaigns, membership mobilization, coalition building and leadership training is preferred. The Center, located on a 47-acre campus in Silver Spring, Maryland, offers specialized educational and training programs for officers, staff and other activists from affiliated unions including a Baccalaureate degree program conducted in cooperation with Antioch University and a Master of Science in Labor Studies with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Center is administered by an Executive Director and governed by a Board of Trustees which includes the President, Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO, as well as public and other labor members. Responsibilities will include: -- Developing, coordinating and teaching in Center multi-union residential programs on varied union topics. -- Acting as liaison with affiliates and their programs at the Center. -- Working cooperatively with national/international unions in the development of their leadership training programs. -- Developing and writing curricula and supporting instructional materials for use in the broader labor education community. -- Teaching in both Center and national/international union residential institutes. -- Providing counseling and other administrative functions in the George Meany Center's degree programs. -- Attending regular faculty meetings to develop and plan curriculum areas and individual programs, explore ways to make the Center even more accessible to affiliates and improve the Center experience for participants. In addition to the experience mentioned earlier, a candidate should have a basic and practical understanding of the structure and operation of the trade union movement and training/teaching experience in a union environment. This position is represented by the Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild, Local 35 of the Newspaper Guild. Educational Qualifications: A terminal degree in a field of study related to labor studies is preferred. Equivalent experience will be accepted. Salary: Commensurate with qualifications. Please submit your letter of application to: Susan J. Schurman Executive Director George Meany Center for Labor Studies 10000 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903 The George Meany Center for Labor Studies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply. Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ "This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From aanz@sirius.com Sun May 11 00:12:32 1997 Sat, 10 May 1997 23:11:33 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 23:19:53 +0100 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: aanz@sirius.com (anzalone/starbird) Subject: Oakland, CA Labor Ed. for AUGUST '97 Chia.Hamilton@ncal.kaiperm.org, liam@iww.org, Lyn_Duff@sfbayguardian.com, meisenscher@igc.org, netsy@socrates.berkeley.edu, oshalert@scisun.sci.ccny.cuny.edu, aiwa@igc.apc.org, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu, datacenter@igc.apc.org, cuznbob@crl.com, drichardson@igc.apc.org, easkari@uclink4.berkeley.edu, fgapasin@ucla.edu, hwoc@igc.apc.org, jberry@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu, jpottert@unix.sjeccd.cc.ca.us, kurzweil@email.sjsu.edu, solidyouth@igc.apc.org, shattuck@uclink.berkeley.edu Labor Studies: (510) 464-3210 August 21st is the first day of class for the fall semester in Oakland, California. All Week night classes are taught from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, the semester ends in December, 1997. MONDAY: Grievance Handling and Arbitration, Room B 252 TUESDAY: Labor Law, Room B262 WEDNESDAY: WORKPLACE ORGANIZING, Room G206 THURSDAY: American Labor Movement, Room B252 History, culture and values of working class & movement. SATURDAY from 10 am to 11 am Home Care Workers, newly organized into SEIU will be creating a class: WORK AND FAMILY ISSUES FOR HOME CARE WORKERS On October 4th, 11th, and 18th from 9 am - 4pm: WORKERS' CULTURE: BRINGING LABOR ALIVE IN SONG: Put your struggles to music with assistance from Pat Wynn, no singing experience required. Tuition assistance and child care matching funds are available for the under and unemployed. Otherwise each course is $13. per unit. There is a one time student fee of $2. To enroll, show up for class or call (510) 464-3210. From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Sun May 11 01:17:34 1997 Sun, 11 May 1997 00:16:45 -0700 (PDT) Sun, 11 May 1997 00:16:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 00:16:27 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com, OIFAC@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: [Fwd: The New Face Of Unionbusting] (long) Sender: meisenscher@igc.org I commend this excellent article to you and encourage you to make it available to others. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- From: Institute for Global Communications Newsgroups: labr.newsline Subject: The New Face Of Unionbusting Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 21:59:49 -0700 (PDT) /* ---------- "CAQ; union-busting article" ---------- */ http://www.worldmedia.com/caq/articles/unionbust.htm This was in the new CAQ. It also has an article on prison labor in it. (lots of other good stuff- highly recommended!) In the paper edition includes pictures of Vance International guards in full riot gear. I found smaller versions of those pictures at http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/9611/02a.html (at that site they have others too) you can check some of the new CAQ out online at http://www.worldmedia.com/caq/tocs/spring97_toc.htm LABOR SLAPS THE SMUG NEW FACE OF UNION-BUSTING by David Bacon Unionbusting has traditionally been a dirty business, dominated by consultants, law firms, and private guards conducting scorched-earth campaigns against unions in strikes and National Labor Relations Board ( NLRB) elections. It still is. But just as unions have begun a period of transformation, becoming more committed to organizing and better at it, unionbusting has expanded. The state of the art now includes sophisticated efforts to forestall organizing drives by creating company-dominated organizations in the workplace and by manipulating demographics to create a "union-proof"work force. Whole industries are now contracted out, so that workers, in the eyes of the law, are no longer even the direct employees of the corporations that nevertheless control their lives. Two years ago, the highest profile union organizing group in the country, Justice for Janitors, met some of this new corporate thinking head-on. Having previously organized most janitors in California's Silicon Valley and neighboring Alameda County, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877, one of the country's fastest-growing unions, moved its organizing crew to Sacramento, the state capital. Its target was Somers Building Maintenance, a key employer with large and profitable contracts to clean state buildings and the facilities of major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard. After winning workers' support, Local 1877 asked Somers to recognize the union based on a check of authorization cards. *1 The company refused. Within weeks, an ex-supervisor and the wife of another supervisor began going through Hewlett-Packard buildings at night, collecting signatures for the Couriers and Service Employees Local 1, a little-known union not affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Somers quickly recognized Local 1, signed a contract with no wage increases, and began giving preferential treatment to workers affiliated with the company union. Meanwhile, workers claiming to be Local 1 representatives threatened Local 1877 supporters; two workers were attacked and beaten. *2 Eventually, the NLRB issued a complaint, calling Local 1 a company union. Somers settled the charge and kicked the organization out. Somers' company union marked a new and sophisticated effort to defeat one of today's unions most successful strategies typified by Justice for Janitors' campaigns.Many union observers credit the effort to the West Coast's premier anti-union law firm, Littler, Mendelssohn, Fastiff and Tichy, ranked No. 2 on a national list of unionbusters maintained by the AFL-CIO. The firm is the largest specifically anti-labor law firm in the country, with 270 attorneys in 20 cities, and revenues of $72 million in 1995. Somers and Littler tried to find a weak point in Justice for Janitors' campaign strategy, which rallies many-sided pressures on building owners. Union organizers build community coalitions to mount boycotts, document violations of worker protection laws, and file barrages of court actions. Union members and supporters conduct rallies, demonstrations, and sit-ins, often using civil disobedience to back up organizing efforts. But at Somers, while SEIU Local 1877 mounted pressure from outside the workplace, the company used Local 1 to create a climate of fear among the workers themselves. Those who supported the company union were given better treatment,and some were even chosen as stewards. Somers created a small core of employees who identified strongly with the company, while supporters of Local 1877 had to fight just to keep their jobs. Somers found another ally in Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who held hearings of the House government oversight committee to push a longer-term Republican agenda entirely barring corporate campaign tactics such as those used by Justice for Janitors. Marlene Somsak, a public relations spokesperson for Hewlett-Packard, referred to the campaign as "the use of neutral parties as battlegrounds." OFF WITH ITS HEAD Employers and their political allies want to force union organizing drives back into the legal process of NLRB elections, while the whole Justice for Janitors strategy is an effort to avoid them.That says a lot about how distorted the legal system has become. "Sometimes I think the National Labor Relations Act should be repealed," comments AFL-CIO Organizing Director Richard Bensinger bitterly. "What could be worse than this?"3 Joe Uehlein, past secretary of the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department and now director of its Department of Strategic Campaigns, points out that classic unionbusting has always been reactive. Employers respond both to the prospect that workers might organize a union and to the specific tactics unions use. "We set the battlefield; they have to react to it," he asserts."That's why they want to make us deal with the NLRB. They control that process, and they know how to win using it."4 And win they do. Unions lose about half the NLRB elections, and more in larger companies than smaller ones. Even worse, they win contracts with only half of the companies where workers vote for union representation. Bensinger explains that "NLRB elections force unions into a propaganda war in which they have to convince workers that life can be better in the future if they're organized." Management has a full array of weapons. Using a barrage of legal tactics, anti-union law firms try to carve out a bargaining unit of workers with a minimum of union support. They delay elections as long as possible to give management a chance to reverse union support through intense, one-on-one conversations with supervisors. In captive audience meetings that workers are forced to attend, management issues threats and promises and asks for "a second chance." Unionbusters show videos depicting violent strikes, while carefully-coached management representatives tell workers they'll have to strike if the union wins. "In the meantime, the union is excluded from the workplace entirely and has no way of stopping illegal activity before the voting takes place," Bensinger says. "The fact is, workers don't really have the right to organize unions." *5 Unionbusting consultants have thrived as the legal process has grown more and more skewed. When Local 2850 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) began its organizing drive at the Lafayette Park Hotel in an upper class San Francisco suburb, hotel managers brought in the American Consulting Group (ACG, No. 31 on the AFL-CIO list).*6 In short order, the hotel fired two of the most active union supporters and laid the necessary bedrock of any anti-union campaign: fear. Nationally, the AFL-CIO estimates that one in ten workers participating in a union organizing campaign is fired."Preemption is the unionbusters' philosophy,"explains Local 2850 President Jim Dupont. "Their approach is `take the head off before it has a chance to grow.'"7 When the Lafayette Park fired Socorro Zapien, management undoubtedly knew she was a union supporter. According to Dupont, the hotel had sent a spy to union meetings. *8 The hotel denied the charge to the NLRB. She was accused of taking a chocolate bar, a charge she denied, and going early to her coffee break. Zapien had no previous disciplinary record. Nevertheless, the NLRB refused to demand that the hotel rehire her. The board follows the Riteline decision, which says that if there is any business reason unrelated to union activity for a firing, no matter how unlikely, termination is legal. Even if the board does finally order reinstatement, the process can take years and workers have already learned the price for supporting the union. At the Lafayette Park Hotel, the firings were combined with raises and increases in benefits. Unions suspect that ACG consultants trained supervisors to identify and isolate pro-union workers, pressured the undecided, and helped form anti-union employee committees standard unionbuster tactics during NLRB election campaigns. "After all that, there was no way we could have a fair election there," Dupont says. *9 Local 2850 countered with an increasingly common step among unions that find the NLRB process fails to protect workers or to penalize employers for illegal action: It turned to direct pressure. HERE organized pickets and enlisted immigrant rights activists and religious supporters to march against the hotel. It also announced a boycott. Weddings, parties, and conferences were canceled, either in solidarity or because of the unattractive atmosphere. The union spread its activity to two other northern California hotels owned by the same company. This is just the kind of campaign that Rep. Hoekstra and congressional Republicans are trying to ban through legislation. ACG responded with extensive public relations work to undermine the boycott. It pressured city council members to pass a city ordinance (later found unconstitutional) against the marches, and tried to restrict the union through injunctions against the union's free speech and direct action tactics. ACG also brought in another consultant, Lupe Cruz, to deal with the mostly Latina, immigrant work force. The Lafayette Park Hotel campaign is still going on. Unions adopting this approach have to have a long-term commitment. But it often succeeds where the NLRB process fails. After a similar four-year fight by Local 2 at San Francisco's Parc 55 Hotel, management gave in and signed a contract. BLOOD & GUTS STRIKEBREAKERS The classic strategy for breaking already-organized unions hiring scabs received its blessing from the Reagan administration in its handling of the PATCO strike in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan ordered the firing of 7,000 air traffic controllers. It was baptized in fire in 1983 in the bitter Arizona copper miners' strike at Phelps Dodge. That two-year-long strike was "really the start of the modern process of permanent replacement of strikers by scabs," according to Joe Uehlein. "We still haven't, as a movement, understood its impact, much less recovered from it." *10 Since Phelps Dodge, the list of companies hiring scabs to break strikes is a roll call of the major class battles of the 1980s and 1990s: Continental Airlines, Eastern Airlines, International Paper, Greyhound, Caterpillar, Hormel, Watsonville Canning and Frozen Foods, Diamond Walnut, Pittston, Wheeling-Pittsburgh, USX, and many others. Not all of these battles have been won by employers, but the pattern of attack is basically the same. In 1995, management of the Detroit News, owned by Gannett Publications, and the Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight-Ridder, put demands on the table to replace cost-of-living raises with merit increases and to replace union jobs with non-union positions. Knowing the terms would be unacceptable to unions and hoping for a strike, they made arrangements with national consulting firms and with the local police. Four months before the strike, the Detroit Newspaper Agency, a joint operation of both newspapers to share production and distribution facilities, promised to compensate the Sterling Heights Police Department for overtime costs from shepherding scabs into the plant. By the time the strike was a year old, the newspapers had paid out $2.1 million. *11 The newspapers also lined up hired guns to handle scabs, legal affairs, PR, and security. A good-sized industry of such support institutions exists. One of the largest companies specializing in providing replacement workers, BE&K, maintains a data bank with the names of hundreds of workers who travel the country from strike to strike. The newspapers contracted with one of BE&K's rivals, Alternative Work Force (AWF), for 580 scabs. They also brought in the veteran anti-union law firm of King and Ballow (No. 29 on the AFL-CIO list). *12 This company has masterminded a series of newspaper wars in Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, and San Francisco, among other cities. Standard legal strategy during strikes rests on convincing friendly judges to issue injunctions to virtually eliminate picketing, so that scabs can pass freely in and out. To guard the scabs, the newspapers first hired Huffmaster Security, another company which, like AWF, has made lots of money in the newspaper wars. *13 In the first four months of the strike, Huffmaster and AWF were paid $2.3 million for supplying 480 guards and 580 scabs. Huffmaster, which is suing the papers for $1.6 million more, *14 was replaced by a larger, even more notorious, security firm, Vance International, whose guards sport black uniforms and combat boots. The effect is startling, as Cleveland teachers learned in fall 1996 while they prepared to strike. "When uniformed out-of-state security forces invaded a Cleveland high school ... complete with shields, bulletproof vests, cots, and in some cases sidearms, we now realize that the education of Cleveland children [was] the last thought on the minds of the state officials running strike preparations," commented Ohio State Representative Vermel M. Whalen. *15 Nor is the menacing image purely for show. In Detroit, 20 Vance guards beat striker Vito Sciuto with a stick, breaking his skull. In comments to a reporter afterwards, a Vance employee said the guards wanted "to hurt people." *16 This reputation makes money for Vance; its 1995 strikebreaking activity grossed $90 million of the $25 billion private security industry. *17 But its real success, according to company founder Chuck Vance, lies in its use of video cameras. During the strike at the Pittston Coal Co., for instance, Vance collected thousands of hours of videotapes. Courts hostile to miners in the coalfields used the tapes to justify $64 million in fines against the United Mine Workers, fines later overturned by the Supreme Court. The tapes are also useful after a strike is over to ensure that active union members are not rehired and that "troublemakers" are dealt with. While there is basically no punishment for companies if scabs threaten or injure strikers, the NLRB has held that any striker who threatens scabs, or even insults them, can be fired. When the United Auto Workers struck Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, Vance's Asset Protection Team pushed and shoved strikers and family members in order to provoke confrontations it could video. Guards followed strikers to their homes.Caterpillar striker Ron Heller monitored a police radio conversation mentioning a list of "troublemakers."In later legal action, he uncovered records that indicate Vance supplied a list of active union members to local police. The results, so far, have pleased the management of the Detroit papers. Frank Vega, CEO of Detroit Newspaper Agency, said "we would have waited three or four more contracts to get to where this strike has gotten us."18 THE MODERNCOMPANY UNION Companies use different tactics in dealing with workers trying to organize than they use to break existing unions like those conducting the newspaper strikes. Not far from the Lafayette Park, another, larger, hotel chain is implementing a sophisticated strategy to block union organizing before it starts. The Hyatt Hotel in Sacramento has set up peer review committees where workers can go with problems they can't resolve with their supervisors. The committees consist of two supervisors and three employees chosen by the aggrieved worker from a list of employees who have gone through conflict resolution training. The important part of this process, according to HERE 2850's Dupont, is that"it creates the semblance of justice."19 In other words, it seems like workers don't need a union to resolve their problems. After General Electric defeated a union drive at its Mattoon, Illinois plant in 1991, it hired Caras and Associates of Columbia, Maryland, to set up similar peer reviews. The strategy, designed to stave off a second unionizing effort, also insulated the company from discrimination complaints. "Once [government] investigators see the peer review approach," noted GE specialist Jack Hoffman, "they usually don't even go through the paperwork." *20 Peer review committees are only a small part of a much larger picture. Modern personnel practices in large corporations try to inoculate workers against the idea of organizing or taking sides against management. This sophisticated unionbusting strategy is a modern-day version of company unionism. Much of this strategy was developed in Silicon Valley during the Cold War. *21 From the beginning, high-tech workers have faced an industry-wide, anti-union policy. Robert Noyce, who helped invent the transistor and later became a co-founder of Intel Corp., declared that "remaining non-union is an essential for survival for most of our companies. ... This is a very high priority for management here." *22 Expanding electronics plants were laboratories for personnel-management techniques for maintaining a "union-free environment." These techniques, which focused on the team method for organizing workers, were later used against unions in other industries, from auto-manufacturing to steel-making. Silicon Valley hearings of the Commission on the Future of Labor Management Relations, the Dunlop Commission,held in January of 1994, gave the public a first-hand look at high-tech labor/management cooperation. According to Pat Hill-Hubbard, senior vice president of the American Electronics Association, "employees have become decision-makers, and management has practically disappeared."23 Doug Henton, representing Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, an industry/government policy group, was even more blunt. "Unions as they have existed in the past are no longer relevant," he said. "Labor law of 40 years ago is not appropriate to 20th century economics."24 In the high-performance workplace, asserted Phuli Siddiqi, an Intel worker who gave part of her company's presentation, work teams give employees a voice. She described "worker ownership of projects and products," and the company's employee recognition program, "Pat on the Back." *25 In the early years of the electronics industry, companies paid relatively low wages, but they attempted to equal, and sometimes surpass, union benefits, providing medical and dental plans and even sick leave. Hewlett-Packard even promised never to lay off workers. Today, however, permanent jobs are being abolished. Half the work force in many large electronics plants works for temporary agencies, without any benefits, and at much lower salaries. *26 "The company always told us they had to be competitive," said Romie Manan, a worker at National Semiconductor Corp.'s non-union Santa Clara plant: "Increasing the company's profitability, they said, would increase our job security. That was the purpose of our workteams. Then the company took the ideas contributed by the experienced work force in Santa Clara, which they got through the team meetings, and used them to organize new labs with inexperienced workers in Arlington, Texas, where wages are much lower. The experienced workers lost their jobs. The team meetings stole our experience and ideas, and didn't give us any power to protect our jobs and families.27" Manan lost his own job, as did more than 30,000 semiconductor workers on production lines in Silicon Valley in the last 10 years. Through its 50-year existence, the semiconductor industry has successfully prevented workers from organizing unions by combining the lure of labor-management cooperation with the threat of job loss. This model of unionbusting does not depend on outside consultants, but on the expertise of companies' own human relations departments. The strategy is less reactive than the traditional approach and is in place on a constant basis, whether organizing attempts are in progress or not. The ideologues of this approach consider union organizing drives a punishment for companies which have failed. Kirby Dyess, Intel's vice president of human relations, says that when workers organize unions, "it is a failure of management." *28 Although many of the new structures for labor/management cooperation are currently illegal, corporations are lobbying hard to change that. After the Republican sweep of the 1994 elections, both the Senate and House passed the Team Act, which weakens the portion of the NLRA Section 8(a)(2) which prohibits company unions. Looking for labor support in 1996, President Clinton vetoed the bill. Congressional observers, however, think that its reintroduction is still possible. A "UNION PROOF" WORK FORCE Modern unionbusting combines the paternalism of the company union with another sophisticated strategy designing a "union-proof" work force. This is also a spin on old ideas. John Sayles' film Matewan, for example, recalls the effort by coal operators in the 1920s to bring immigrants of one nationality or race to scab on the strikes of another. In Los Angeles, cleaning contractors in office buildings in the mid-1980s dumped their largely African American union work force, shed their union contracts, and hired immigrants. Today in the Midwest and Southeast, the burgeoning poultry industry is using the same strategy. Some of the largest food corporations in the world, such as ConAgra, systematically recruit immigrant workers. They believe that an immigrant work force has several advantages: In the eyes of managers, immigrant workers not only have low wage expectations, but are less likely to support unions because they face an unknown and unfriendly environment, immigration problems, and are ignorant of their rights. While profitable in the short run, however, using immigrants as a bulwark against unions may prove to be many companies' undoing. In Los Angeles in 1991, hundreds of immigrant janitors were attacked by police as they marched for the union in Century City. Public outrage was so great that the building owners and contractors were forced to sign new union agreements. The battle put Justice for Janitors on the national labor radar screen. Immigrant construction workers in southern California were also brought in to replace a higher-wage work force in the 1980s. But a movement organized largely by immigrants themselves first struck drywall contractors in 1992, and then framing contractors in 1995. They won union contracts for thousands of workers in some of the first bottom-up, grassroots organizing drives in the construction industry since the 1930s. *29 Many immigrants bring militant traditions with them from their home countries, and have high expectations of social and economic justice. The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project has established a new center for immigrant-based organizing, to support mobilizing drives in the largest concentration of industrial workers in the world. With the new welfare reform bill and preexisting programs to force welfare recipients into the job market, employers have seen another source of a potentially "union-proof" work force. Cities have already begun looking at workfare recipients as a pool of low-cost labor that can replace unionized employees. Last August, negotiating with a gun to its head, New York's Transit Union was forced to agree that 500 union jobs cleaning subways would be eliminated through attrition, while hundreds of workfare recipients took over those tasks. *30 While a few workfare recipients may eventually get permanent jobs, that transition was clearly not what the Metropolitan Transit Authority had in mind. Its goal is a work force of subway cleaners paid the equivalent of minimum wage for doing the same job that union employees now perform for a much higher one. New York City uses a growing number of workfare recipients and will expand its workfare work force to 60,000 by 1998. Many of the city's unions have criticized the municipal workers' union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 37, for not mounting a more aggressive challenge to the city's growing workfare program. Stung by the criticism, District Executive Director Stanley Hill finally called for a moratorium on expansion beyond the present 35,000 enrollees. *31 Public employee unions have historically supported jobs for welfare recipients and unemployed people. But workfare, they say, offers no solution, because there's no guarantee of an eventual permanent job paying a liveable wage. "When you flood the labor market with workfare recipients," explains Fran Bernstein from AFSCME's national office, "you see enormous wage depression for the bottom third of the work force. That's intentional." *32 What unions want is a basic bill of rights for workfare recipients, including the right to the same wage and treatment given other employees, the right to organize unions, and protection from unfair and arbitrary discipline. * Private employers are also eyeing the possibilities. Marriott Corp., which made one of the first efforts to bring workfare into its work force, emphasizes that it supports and counsels recipients about problems such as tardiness, rather than simply disciplining or firing them as it does with other workers. But for workfare recipients, the weekly benefit check is all that stands between them and the streets. That's an advantage to a company like Marriott, which has mounted a scorched-earth fight to keep its regular employees from organizing unions. Employers contend recipients are not workers at all, and have no right to organize or file complaints against health and safety dangers or discrimination. In September, President Clinton urged expansion of workfare in the private sector. "We cannot create enough public-service jobs to hire these folks," he said, adding that "this has basically got to be a private-sector show." *33 But with no guarantee about maintaining existing wage levels or protecting the rights of workfare recipients, welfare reform pits them against currently-employed workers in a race to the bottom. It promises to transform jobs that can support families into ones that can't, and to rob the people who perform them of security, job rights, and their dignity as workers. CAN THE BUSTERS BE BEATEN? "For over 10 years, employers have been ruthless and sophisticated," Bensinger says, "and there have been a lot of seminars given by unionbusters cashing in on their interest." *34 It's clear that employers have their eyes on unions' most innovative strategies. Following the election of John Sweeney in October 1995, the No. 1 law firm on the AFL-CIO's list, Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler and Krupman, gave seminars to drill employers on the "The AFL-CIO's `Union Yes' Campaign." The conference prospectus noted the increase in the AFL-CIO's organizing budget,the rising interest in "militant and creative new organizing tactics," including "obstruct the economy" and "go to jail," and advertised sessions on the peer review committee strategy and the Electromation case, which bans modern company unions.35 Like unions, unionbusters learn from experience. After years of seeing the United Farm Workers hold big marches during organizing drives, for instance, last year strawberry growers in Watsonville, California, organized their own march of workers opposed to the union. Understanding the importance of public opinion, growers hired their own PR agency, the Dolphin Group of Los Angeles, to manage their image. Direct activity by anti-union consultants and law firms, and their strikebreaking guards, is a big obstacle to the survival and growth of unions. But in the long term, the new face of unionbusting may prove to have an even greater effect. The newest and fastest growing industries electronics, biotechnology, and others have developed an anti-union structure which workers have yet to crack on a large scale. The use of chronic unemployment and social policies such as welfare and immigration reform pits workers against each other in desperate competition. Fighting against unionbusting, therefore, is not simply a matter of using more intelligent and innovative tactics. Labor has to fight for a social agenda that includes the repeal of welfare reform, and supports racial and gender equality and equity between immigrant and native-born workers. Organizing the unemployed may prove to be as important as organizing in the workplace. Just preserving the overall percentage of organized workers takes more than 400,000 new union members a year, a rate the AFL-CIO has yet to achieve. While trained, full-time organizers are necessary, as is a commitment to using more sophisticated and militant strategies, clearly the 15 million US union members must become more involved in union activity. That requires structural changes within unions, increasing the involvement of ordinary members in decision-making, and reducing the often-wide gulf that separates leadership from rank-and-file. In US labor history, large-scale union organizing has always been part of a broader social movement fighting for the interests of all workers, organized and unorganized, employed and unemployed. The company unions, the violence of strikebreakers, and the lack of legal rights which faced workers in the 1920s were swept away a decade later. The upsurge among millions of American workers, radicalized by the Depression and left-wing activism, forced corporate acceptance of labor for the first time in the country's history. That activism mobilized the power of workers to overcome obstacles not dissimilar to those of the present. They projected a vision of social and economic change that went far beyond, and directly in contradiction to, the prevailing wisdom of its time. The current changes in labor may be the beginning of something as large and profound. If they are, then the obstacles erected by present-day unionbusters can become a historical relic as quickly as did those of an earlier era. From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Sun May 11 15:42:05 1997 Sun, 11 May 1997 14:40:16 -0700 (PDT) Sun, 11 May 1997 14:39:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 14:39:05 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com, pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: 25,000 Australian Workers Rally (fwd) Sender: meisenscher@igc.org [Political Action from the bottom up, Australian style. We could learn a thing or two.] /* Written 6:38 PM May 4, 1997 by peg:greenleft in igc:greenleft.news */ Title: 25,000 rally against anti-union laws By Anthony Benbow PERTH - Twenty-five thousand people filled the streets on April 29 in a massive protest against the Court government's ``third wave'' of anti-union laws - the largest rally for workers' rights here in decades. All unions took industrial action, some for a few hours, some for days. Perth airport was closed for 24 hours as interstate unions joined a goods and services blockade. April 29 was a tremendous beginning to the campaign. Rain seemed to make no difference to those who marched: state public servants who had a mass meeting of thousands before the rally; construction workers who brought their industry to a halt; and teachers, who were there in force despite a desperate government campaign to declare their action illegal. Workers attended from every branch of the private and public sectors: nurses, manufacturing, electrical and transport workers, meatworkers and many others. This made a mockery of the Court government's claims that only a ``minority'' of workers were behind all the fuss. Many country workers travelled to Perth for the rally. ACTU president Jennie George, and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions representative Dan Gallin addressed the crowd. Gallin pledged international support in defeating the laws. Greens (WA) Senator Dee Margetts called for the bill to be scrapped, not ``negotiated''. WA Uniting Church moderator John Dunn highlighted its divisive effects on the community. Incoming Democrats MLC Helen Hodgson spoke, and songwriter Bernard Carney contributed a protest song written for the occasion, as he did during the campaign against the ``second wave'' of industrial laws in 1995. The rally marched to parliament, where a ``workers' embassy'' was set up in a tent. Protestors made plans to stay there until the bill was defeated, but late on April 30 police broke up the embassy and arrested four members of the Builders Labourers Painters and Plasterers Union, who were charged with ``unlawfully remaining on premises''. Nevertheless, workers and the embassy were back in force the following morning, enjoying a barbecued breakfast. A central focus of ongoing action is the power strike, which began again on the April 29. Western Power has enforced restrictions on homes and industry. Deft manoeuvring in the Industrial Relations Commission by power unions has so far dodged return-to-work orders. WA unions are currently in a strong position. Members are well-informed of the bill's effects and have demonstrated their willingness to take action. More community support is evident than during the campaign in 1995. In this position, settling for amendments would be suicide. The task now is to use that strength to kill the bill, remove the legislation altogether, and labour relations minister Graham Kierath with it. Such a victory would leave unions in better shape to fight future attacks on workers' rights, wherever they come from. In Melbourne, 200 workers assembled outside the West Australian Tourist Commission on April 29, in solidarity with the WA workers. Organised by Trades Hall, the rally was addressed by Leigh Hubbard, secretary of Trades Hall Council; Martin Kingham from the CFMEU construction division; a speaker from the Public Transport Union; and Jan Armstrong from the Health Sector Union. First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by Green Left Weekly. Correspondence and hard copy subsciption inquiries: greenleft@peg.apc.org ** End of text from cdp:labr.global ** *************************************************************************** This material came from PeaceNet, a non-profit progressive networking service. For more information, send a message to peacenet-info@igc.apc.org *************************************************************************** From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Sun May 11 18:49:50 1997 Sun, 11 May 1997 17:48:19 -0700 (PDT) Sun, 11 May 1997 17:47:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 17:47:38 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com, pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, OIFAC@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: May 12, 1997 Day of Electronic Activism Sender: meisenscher@igc.org MAY 12, 1997 DAY OF ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM On May 12, 1997 the Communications Workers of America will launch a new section of their web site with a Day of Electronic Activism. The site is devoted to the fight for jobs with justice at Disney companies and their inexcusable treatment of their employees at ABC and in foreign sweatshops. What you will do at the site: -Send a message to Disney CEO Michael Eisner protesting union busting at ABC and labor abuses abroad - Disney is demanding take-backs from workers, including the elimination of company pension contributions. The company also employed a contractor in Thailand who exploited 13 and 14 year old children by hiring them to sew Disney clothes. -Send an email to Members of Congress asking them to close a tax loophole by which Disney will avoid paying $600 million in capital gains taxes - this translates to $5 per taxpayer. -Send an email to major advertisers on the ABC television network letting them know that you do not want to patronize their businesses if they continue to bankroll Disney - A 12 year old girl was found working in a Los Angeles factory that manufactures Disney products. How can advertisers support this sort of abhorrent behavior? Play the Disney Activist Trivia Game to Win a Prize! Visit: www.cwa-union.org and CLICK on *Be An Electronic Activist*. SEND THIS MESSAGE TO YOUR E-MAIL LISTS AND HAVE THOSE LISTS DO THE SAME! IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE SHOW ABC-DISNEY THAT UNFAIR PRACTICES CAN YIELD A VERY HIGH PRICE. REMEMBER: ON MAY 12, JOIN NABET/CWA FOR A DAY OF ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM! For more information, email cwa@capcon.net or visit our Web Site at http://www.cwa-union.org From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Mon May 12 23:39:22 1997 Mon, 12 May 1997 22:37:50 -0700 (PDT) Mon, 12 May 1997 22:36:29 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 22:36:29 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: a strong U.S. economy? (fwd) Sender: meisenscher@igc.org This appeared in the San Francisco Flier of May 8, 1997. (The Flier, which is distributed free in print form in the S.F. Bay Area, appears on the Web at http://www.well.com/user/sfflier; its e-mail address is sfflier@well.com.) Don't Do That Voodoo by Betsey Culp WARNING: The following contains very large numbers, representing large numbers of very ordinary people. The wizards in Washington have been casting some remarkable spells. First they conjured up "the end to welfare as we know it," meaning the end to the safety nets that had protected thousands of poor people from indigence (according to my dictionary, "a level of poverty in which real hardship and deprivation are suffered and comforts of life are wholly lacking"). Then last Saturday, with fanfares and full imperial regalia, they enthroned a resplendent new era in which unemployment is at a 25-year low, economic growth is at a 10-year high, and--this is a direct quote from The President--"our economy is now the strongest it's been in a generation." The mainstream press celebrated with prominent front-page coverage: in the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle you could hear champagne corks popping behind Robert A. Rosenblatt's description of an age when "the booming economy generated new jobs at a rapid pace." The stock market leaped in a graceful grand jet=E9 that would have made Baryshnikov proud, jubilant that, miraculously, the decline in the jobless rate had not produced omens of inflation. The populace huzzahed, reassured that the dreaded warlock Alan Greenspan, with his cauldron of ever-rising interest rates, had been driven from the gates (at least until May 20, when the Federal Reserve is considering raising rates again). But after wading through the first gleeful sentences in my newspaper, I realized that this economic emperor is stark knobby-kneed naked. I noticed, first of all, that the Department of Labor, which prepared the figures, doesn't say that employment is up. In fact, a lot of people (some 6.7 million) are still looking for work, and the most flagrant category of unemployed--African American male teenagers--has grown from last year's 34.9 percent to 37.3 percent. Half of the "decline in the jobless rate" came from a decrease in the workforce: the number of people with jobs remained nearly the same in April as in March, but for some reason fewer people were available to work. There has actually been a reduction in the past six months (from 63.1 percent in October to 54.2 percent in April) in industries generating new jobs in our booming economy. And on the average, people with jobs earned one percent less in April than they had in previous months. "People with jobs"--this is the magic phrase that flips His Imperial Majesty upside down and whisks off the last tattered pieces of his once-dazzling figleaf. The Job has been sanctified as the talisman necessary for a prosperous and stable society and, led by Milwaukee, one city after another is moving its poorest residents from welfare to workfare. But an ingredient must be missing from this witches' brew, because something has gone awry: at a time when the unemployment rate has fallen to a media-worthy 4.9 percent, the official poverty rate remains somewhere around 13 percent. Nearly 64 million Americans are employed in civilian jobs, but at least 35 million people in the United States live in poverty. (I say "at least" 35 million because official statistics take time to prepare and the most recent figure, 36.4 million, is for the year 1995.) Whatever happened to the idea of earning a living wage? Doesn't anyone (except the people who don't make one) think it's fundamental to a decent life? Or have the holders of well-paying jobs gotten so out of touch with the nitty-gritty of daily existence that they simply have no conception of what constitutes a living wage? Even if they cannot cross the imaginative hurdle into empathy for a person trying to feed, clothe, and shelter a family on the minimum wage, all they need is a little elementary arithmetic, using numbers provided by the Department of Labor and the Bureau of the Census, to understand the situation intellectually. The official poverty threshold in the United States in 1996 for a family of three (one parent and two children) was $12,517. Let's say that a single parent works full-time at a job paying $5.15 an hour, the new minimum wage that will go into effect on September 1, 1997. His--or more likely, her--annual earnings of $10,712 will leave the family short by $150 a month. (For a family of four, with a threshold of $16,029, the task is a little easier. If the father has a full-time job, the mother can work half-time, take better care of the children, and still make up the amount needed. A nice, neat solution, except that most poor families are headed by single adults.) Even if the parent lands a better-paying job--a real achievement these days for a high school graduate with no further training--the family is still likely to fall behind. Full-time jobs are hard to find: in a period when factory overtime rose, the average workweek in private industry was only 34.6 hours. Thirty-five million poor people, more than the combined populations of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, participate in an economy that is busily producing the highest profit margin of the past generation. They live in poverty for many reasons, which mostly converge at one point: they are not paid enough for their work to allow them to escape. What is the wisdom in investing our nation's future in an economy where inequalities--and inequities--in the distribution of wealth are increasing? And what is the wisdom in bragging about it? From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 15 16:27:42 1997 Thu, 15 May 1997 14:23:41 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 15 May 1997 14:22:07 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 14:22:07 -0700 (PDT) To: united@cougar.com, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Mad Cow Disease of No. American Business Sender: meisenscher@igc.org The Globe and Mail May 15, 1997 CEOs warned fat pay cheques will bring government action ------------------ Survival of capitalism at stake, corporate governance expert says by John Partridge, Financial Services Reporter TORONTO --Excessive pay for chief executive officers has become the "mad cow disease of North American business" and, if left unchecked, it could bring an unwelcome intrusion by government, a corporate governance expert contends. "It moves from boardroom to boardroom infecting directors whose actions frequently defy any notion of good judgment or common sense," Richard Finlay, chairman of the Toronto- based Centre for Public and Corporate Governance, said yesterday. "Multimillion-dollar compensation packages are awarded whether companies are doing well ... or falling into bankruptcy." In an apocalyptic speech to a financial services conference in Toronto, Mr. Finlay warned that the survival of capitalism itself could be at stake. The danger is that "business excess" could lead to "excessive intrusion" by government, he said, "and that we must avoid it at all costs." Mr. Finlay said that the lowest-paid CEO among the five biggest Canadian banks in 1996 -- John Cleghorn of Royal Bank of Canada, who received a total of $2.57 million -- made more than the combined salaries of the Prime Minister, the provincial premiers, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the Chief Justice of Canada and the heads of the Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia securities commissions. Also at the conference, Robert Donaldson, a partner in blue chip law firm Heenan Blaikie, argued that banks and other public companies should be required to disclose the number and nature of all the proposals that shareholders submit for votes at annual meetings but that rarely see the light of day. Traditionally, Mr. Donaldson said, the first response of any company that receives a proposal is to look for technical or substantive reasons to reject such proposals, "to ensure that management will not be embarrassed." Forcing companies to disclose the proposals and how they dealt with them and why would help improve communication among shareholders and make annual meetings more useful. "Why shouldn't shareholders know?" he asked, especially given that "management controls the agenda." From cansv@igc.apc.org Thu May 15 16:42:44 1997 for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:32:42 -0700 (PDT) for ; Thu, 15 May 1997 15:32:28 -0700 (PDT) X-Old-Sender: From: "Curtis Price" To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 17:26:34 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) NATIONAT'L AREOSPACE AND DEFENCE WORKER COALITION Reply-to: cansv@igc.apc.org Sender: cansv@igc.org Does anyone have any information on what this group is? I suspect by the title it's a joint union-management lobbying group for additional defence spending. An activist who puts out a shopfloor newsletter at a local Westinghouse plant asked me to make this inquiry (he doesn't have access to the net). Please feel free to circulate this request to other lists if nec. Curtis Price From johnston@cruzio.com Fri May 16 00:18:08 1997 Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 00:18:07 -0600 (MDT) To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Paul Johnston Subject: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again Folk stimulated by the current surge of graduate student militancy may be interested in a strangely & clumsy essay called "The New Academic Underclass Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age" by yours truly, Yale 1995. Send me a note & I'll post you a copy. Paul Johnston johnston@cruzio.com From majones@netcomuk.co.uk Fri May 16 03:00:29 1997 Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 08:27:56 -0700 From: Mark Jones To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again References: <9705152230.aa02834@mail.cruzio.com> Paul Pls send the essay! Regards Mark Paul Johnston wrote: > > Folk stimulated by the current surge of graduate student militancy may be > interested in a strangely & clumsy essay called "The New Academic Underclass > Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age" by yours > truly, Yale 1995. Send me a note & I'll post you a copy. > > Paul Johnston > johnston@cruzio.com -- Regards, Mark Jones From kettler@bard.edu Fri May 16 09:15:43 1997 X-Ident: IDENT protocol sender: kettler@localhost Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 11:12:53 -0400 (EDT) From: David Kettler To: Labor Research and Action Project Subject: research query In-Reply-To: <337C7CFC.7974@netcomuk.co.uk> The attached is only obliquely related to the sort of topic generally discussed on this network, but I have signed off all my others. If you do not know the answer but belong to a network that includes people likely to have it, would you please forward the question? Thanks. Charlie Tackney in Japan is looking for: * Post-WWII annualized time series data on average exec. (here I mean management exec in general, not just the CEO) compensation multiples over average worker slices of the firm pie. This need be on a national comparative basis: US, Germany, Japan, and U.K. (canada and australia would be fun too). He adds: acc. to the info I have, japan has a lower multiple than even germany. I have never believed japanese workers were as docile and stupid as the lit. generally portrays. They've been into the pie from the outset and have consistently gotten more of it than US workers ever did. No wonder they resonanted with Demming's stuff in the 1950s, they had already a decade of struggle defining the firm in a way that compelled reward for commitment (with a few "minor" constraints like the red purge...). Thanks. David Kettler kettler@bard.edu From jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us Fri May 16 13:11:03 1997 Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 12:25:45 -0800 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us (Julia Stein) Subject: Re: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again >Folk stimulated by the current surge of graduate student militancy may be >interested in a strangely & clumsy essay called "The New Academic Underclass >Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age" by yours >truly, Yale 1995. Send me a note & I'll post you a copy. > >Paul Johnston >johnston@cruzio.com send me a copy of your essay please J. Stein Julia Stein jstein@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us From dmoberg@igc.apc.org Fri May 16 19:43:58 1997 for ; Fri, 16 May 1997 18:43:41 -0700 (PDT) for Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 16 May 1997 18:42:14 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 18:42:14 -0700 (PDT) From: David Moberg To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again Please send your article on graduate students. Thanks, David Moberg. From aanz@sirius.com Sat May 17 01:12:40 1997 for ; Sat, 17 May 1997 00:12:14 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 00:20:31 +0100 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: aanz@sirius.com (anzalone/starbird) Subject: Re: Mad Cow Disease of No. American Business >Greetings! I have been asked to write a paper on Long Distance Education, any suggested resources? ellen starbird, at aanz@sirius.com From 029FRB@cosmos.wits.ac.za Sat May 17 05:31:53 1997 17 May 97 13:32:31 GMT +2:00 From: "FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB@cosmos.wits.ac.za> To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:32:03 GMT + 2:00 Subject: HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK IN DURBAN (fwd) Dear comrades, The forwarded message below is especially addressed to comrades who are able to exert pressures on the mentioned companies in the US, or who can provide their addresses/numbers (see final part of the message). Franco Barchiesi ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:13:43 +0200 (SST) From: Heinrich Bohmke To: Franco Barchiesi <029frb@cosmos.wits.ac.za> Subject: HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK IN DURBAN (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:12:15 +0200 (SST) From: Heinrich Bohmke To: project_underground@moles.org Subject: HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK IN DURBAN Dear Comrades We are the General Secretary and Organiser of the Engen Maintenance Workers' Union (EMWU) which operates on the Engen Oil refinery in Wentworth, Durban, South Africa. We have about 450 workers as members, most of whom have worked for sub-contractors and labour brokers who have performed the maintenance work on the plant. We need your help in publisizing our campaign against Engen (formerly Mobil) for cutting safety personnel on site by 30% and thereby posing a severe threat to our safety and to the safety of the communities of Wentworth and Umlazi. Durban, as you may know, is a port-city (the third largest city in SA) in the Kwa-Zulu/Natal province. Much of our production on site of petrol, jet fuel, benzyne, wax, asphalt, oil, zylene, toloene is for export into Africa. Owing to the threat of instant dismissal under labour brokers and the high turnover of workers over the years, our maintenance sector has historically been unorganised. This is despite heavy and crude exploitation by bosses who still operate out of an apartheid mindset. In fact our work organisation still resembles the old South Africa - whites hold all management jobs, Indians are next on the hierarchy, artisans are mostly 'coloured' and Africans do the heavy manual labour. Although many of us have worked on site for 10 years or more, we have drifted from the employ of one labour broker to another. We live, most of us, in the 'coloured' township of Wentworth and the African township called Umlazi. Job-security is a distant dream and many times we have had to pick up and leave our families to seek work in Sasolburg or up on the Reef. Ironically, because of the consolidation of all these small contracting firms under one larger sub-contractor in February this year, (Group 5 - Brown and Root) we have been able to come together as workers and form a trade union. For once, in our 10 year history with Mobil (now Engen Oil) events have conspired WITH us rather than against us and workers from all the different maintenance sections have linked up. For those familiar with the racial nature of SA capitalism, it will be surprising to see such a wide cross section of all races standing together in one powerful trade union. Happily, this is the case with EMWU that has overcome the divide imposed by apartheid between white, coloured, Indian and African workers. Also the new Labour Relations Act in SA, although far from perfect, extends greater rights to workers' organisations and repeals much of the apartheid union-bashing legislation. Our forming EMWU in February was primarily a response to the threat by our new sub-contractor, [Group 5 - Brown and Root] that it wd cut jobs by 55% to comply with the levels of staff Engen has set down. This, they claim, was part of a strange profit-sharing type contract they have with Engen. It seems Engen dictates the levels of person-power in all divisions of the plant according to a formula called the Solomon Indices. With the help of some comrades in the University of Durban-Westville and together with civic organisations we were able to mobilise the Wentworth and Umlazi community against these impending lay-offs. Reluctantly and under pressure to maintain a 'liberal' image, Group 5 - Brown and Root rehired ALL the people who used to work for the smaller sub-contractors. We considered that quite a victory. Yet the threat was never over. Management, imported a number of "experts" from Houston, Texas who kept trying to introduce multi-skilling (which seems more like demotion or deskilling as they have fitters also doing welding etc). Prominent in this effort was one Jim Frederickson, a consultant to Brown and Root or Halliburton Co. Management has also linked up with dubious "community groups" in the Wentworth township; gangsters loyal to a town councillor named Bella Jacobs. As mentioned before, Wentworth is a "coloured" township. This means, in SA-racial terms, that it is populated by the grandchildren and great grandchildren of interracial relationships going back to slave days. Whilst we do not regard ourselves as different from our fellow South African workers, this is a category foisted upon some of us from above. Unfortunately, during the run up to the elections in 1997, the National Party government was able to play on the fears of "coloureds" pitting their interestsagainst that of the black majority, resulting in some support for the NPin the coloured community. One such NP supporter is Bella Jacobs - who seems to have a direct line to Engen top management. This has made resistance in our community to Engen quite difficult. Whenever a popular campaign around health and safety (the oil trucks have already killed two children on Tara Rd outside the plant, or against dangerous levels of air pollution or against the blue asbestos left uncovered by Engen for weeks) - you can be sure Jacobs will enter the fray placating, and justifying, saying how thankful we must be to have jobs. In this way a environmental group from inside wentworth has been smothered by her and her lackeys, as was the black consciousness aligned - Wentworth Development Forum. Since February, Engen has been on a mad "productivity" drive, bullying us into overtime, neglecting key maintenance work. This had already led to the death of cde Sandile Ngema this year when a pipe on the main line from the acid unit ruptured. When measured it was found that the thickness of that pipe was 0.08cm, instead of the prescribed minimum, 0.65cm. A huge cover-up ensued because although maintenance on that pipe was long overdue, it was not done as that wd have caused a partial shut-down (of Engen's profits). However to add insult to injury, Engen have caused the reduction of the number of safety watchers on site to be reduced from 26 to 17, without consulting with any of the unions, without so much as an explanatory memo or anything. As soon as the old fire-watching contract ended, Engen, by dictate, told Group Five _Brown and Root only to rehire 17 of the 26 fire-watchers. This, in itself presents a grave danger, for the amount of hot-work has not ceased but actually increased. We now have a situation where safety watchers have to double up during welding, grinding and metal cutting in confined spaces and in vessels themselves. This is in violation of even our own "Third world" safety standards. Since 10 May, when the reduction of safety-watchers took effect there have been two related injuries; a minor splash of caustic soda into the face of a welder and a more serious crushing of the leg of a casual labourer because a generator was not properly secured. (Of course, he is expendable and nothing will ever reach the press about just another injured black youth). These are problems safety watchers would have picked up.In our view, our oil refinery is now a time-bomb waiting to explode.We don't see why we have to be wise and vindicated after the fact when a disaster has occurreed. We can see one looming and want to act now! So last Wednesday (14 May) we marched to our (acting) general manager Gareth Jones to ask him to restore the number of safety watchers and to commit himself to complying with proper safety standards. According to our laws, such an action is termed "withdrawal of labour" and falls short of an actual strike. Hundreds of Engen workers, as well as scaffholders joined in our march, which was the first ever to occur on site. Despite marching peacefully, Jones refused to meet us, calling us a "bloody mob". We did not respond. He issued a memo threatening Engen workers with instant dismissal, adding that Group 5's contract would be terminated if we did not go back to work immediately. After many years of being brow-beaten, of having to bow and scrape and be obsequious to survive - it was wonderful to see every man and woman in that march stand as one - and refuse to compromise our own safety. Luckily we also had two comrades from the University with us, who have read the new Laws and this added to our confidence. We walked off site at 15h00 on Wednesday, after Jones threatened to bring to police in. On thursday we came back, only to refuse to do any work where we do not have an individual safety watcher in attendenace. There is now an uneasy stand-off. We met with Mr. Jones the General manager. He is so arrogant it is almost unbelievable. At first he says that that while there has been a reduction in safety watchers, this is actually an *improvement in safety for it forces workers to take responsibility for their own environment*. Everyone is now a safety watcher. When we point out the obvious - that the Engen plant is a volatile place and that safety watchers are there *on the ready* to douse fires or throw switches and close valves and generally observe things we cannot see, he becomes arrogant. Business principles dictate that in Indonesia, one only needs 0.043 safety watchers per barrel of oil, says Jones and that is what WILL pertain at ENGEN too as from NOW. Profits before safety. We are aware that management is beginning retrenchment procedures and that some of us are being isolated for this. We dont know how serious Engen is about cancelling our immediate employer's (Group 5 Brown and Root) contract. They, meanwhile are also putting the squeeze on us and most workers engaged in the work-stoppage are on final written warnings. What we do know is * we cannot rely on government. Our govt is so sold on an export-led model of economic growth that anything that threatens "investor confidence" is frowned upon. This may come as a shock to you, but the ANC's macro economic modela (GEAR) is nothing short of Thatcherite. While Bella Jacobs of the NP is an overt supporter of Engen at community level, many of our former ANC comrades in government are overt supporters of neo-liberalism and so they will not act in our favour. * we can rely on the support of the communities of Wentworth and Umlazi. Already civics, churches and the youth ahave pledged support as well as a Cosatu union that also organises in the Chemical sector. We also feel that one last hit against Engen might just break Bella Jacobs' little fiefdom down. * we have got a reasonably good legal case which we are taking to the Labour Court on Monday. This is meant to win back those safety jobs but also to focus attention on Engen's poor safety record generally. Other similar legal battles resting on the the fact that every "contract of employment has the implicit term and condition of service that a safe and healthy working environment will be provided by the employer" should be forwarded to us. Also are there people you may know who have technical expertise on safety/fire watching in the petro-chemical industry? * we will get at least 20000 people to march on Engen's gates 7 days from now and blocade it. Hopefully this event will receive space in the local press. We ask you to do what you are able to do - in the US. * we can rely on Gareth Jones and Co. reacting very badly to unfavourable press on the safety issue, especially in the US. This is what we need, both for our impending court action as well as the blocade of Engen property. The more mainstrweam the newspaper the better, but also if environmental groups could add some support. As South Africans we have become used to cloaking our *issues* in the anti-apartheid moral garb and so have neglected building bridges with other progressive organisations elsewhere in the world. This is where we would ask for your support. To let people know, either formerly in D&T or informally about what is happening. We dont have those networks and wonder what exactly the possibilities are of organising at an international level. What labour unions might give us support, how do we link up with indigenous people's groups struggling against Mobil too? * also letters or faxes of protest to Engen, Mobil or Brown and Root in the U.S. would be great. Unfortunately we don't have those addresses in the U.S. but suspect a Houton Texas connection. In SA the fax of Group Five would be 27 31 3614174 (attention John Humphreys or Hennie Botha) and Engen's fax no. is 27 31 460 3000 (attention Gareth Jones or Peter Dent). * Lastly any other support, ADVICE or links will be greatly appreciated, particularly if you know of NGO's that might help us fund our legal case. Phambili Basebenzi Phambili! Comradely yours Francis Williams and Patrick Msomi For and On Behalf of EMWU Durban South Africa ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ c/o Dr. A Desai, Mr. Franco Barchiesi & Mr. H Bohmke University of Durban-Westville Wits University Franco Barchiesi Sociology of Work Unit Dept of Sociology Private Bag 3 University of the Witwatersrand PO Wits 2050 Johannesburg South Africa Tel. (++27 11) 716.3290 Fax (++27 11) 716.3781 E-Mail 029frb@cosmos.wits.ac.za http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm Home: 98 6th Avenue Melville 2092 Johannesburg South Africa Tel. (++27 11) 482.5011 From adamwolf@cats.ucsc.edu Sat May 17 23:22:45 1997 id WAA08968; Sat, 17 May 1997 22:22:46 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 22:28:54 -0700 To: branhoff@cats.ucsc.edu, ctheurer@cats.ucsc.edu, elisam@cats.ucsc.edu, gdehart@abacus.bates.edu, evita@cats.ucsc.edu, jamin@cats.ucsc.edu, kabs@cats.ucsc.edu, keb1381100@aol.com, Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu, mintim@aol.com, tamlee@cats.ucsc.edu, vaca@cats.ucsc.edu, james_akiva@hotmail.com From: Adam Jay Wolfson Subject: Support American Airlines (fwd) >Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 20:02:47 -0700 (PDT) >From: Junar Chris C Ortega >To: Aaron McIlvain , > "Adam J. Wolfson" , > Chantal Root , > Constanza Svidler , > Darren Kahan , > Davi Gendel , > Gail Moorehead , Garth Coe , > Greg McClellan , > Joseph Fanvu , > Juliette Ann Tesser , > Karlyn Michelson , > Kristen Wirchanske , > Lee Hileman , > Mickaella Agnello , > Neil Fredrick , > Nick Hall , Paul Rosandich , > Ron Freshman , > Scott Lessin , Stacy Rasgon , > Tara Siener , > Temmo Korisheli <6500tek@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu>, > Yuval Avnur , > "Francisco's Fault This All Started -- Anamika Sud" , > Anna Baardsen , Archie , > Brian Dean , > Ciro Benitez , > David Crawford , > Francisco Aguilar , > "Haggin, Brenton -- Brenton Haggin" , > Jessica , Julie Yaron , > Karen Johnson , > Michael Freed , > Mike Prager , > "Moehring, A.J.--A.J.Moehring" , > Pam Freed , > Shervin Boloorian , > Stephanie David , > Ulises Valdivia , > "William D. Stein" >Subject: Support American Airlines (fwd) > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >DOGBERT: "You know what really gripes my wagger?! Insensitive humans who >say things like, 'She's a real dog' or 'He's in the dog house' or 'It's a >dog's life.'" >DILBERT: "Sounds like a pet peeve". - Scott Adams > >Junar Ortega - uortej00@mcl.ucsb.edu >Isla Vista, CA (805) 685-8776 "JUBRA ZENAR" >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > > >BACKGROUND: >American Airlines is a major sponsor to and supporter of groups like GLAAD, >the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, >the AIDS Action Foundation, DIFFA, AmFAR, and scores of community-based >groups representing gays and lesbians. It is also the first airline >to adopt a written non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation in >its employment practices. > >In an unusual joint letter released to the media on Friday, March 14th >from the Family Research Council, Concerned Women of America, >American Family Association and Coral Ridge Ministries. Radical right >leader Beverly LaHaye also went on Christian "talk radio" on Friday >to blast American Airlines because "American's sponsorship of homosexual >'pride' events constitutes an open endorsement of promiscuous >homosexuality." She and the other groups have written Bob Crandall at >American to complain that the airline has "gone beyond mere tolerance" >of gays and lesbians. The full article appeares in Friday's Fort Worth >Star-Telegram, and possibly picked up by other newspapers around the >country. > >It has come to the attention of the gay and Lesbian community that American >Airline's switchboard and e-mails are being bombarded now by >homophobic and hateful callers who have been urged by LaHaye and others to >DEMAND the company terminate its gay-friendly policies. > > ***if you are the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, etc. person to sign this >petition then please forward this to American Airlines at: >Webmaster@amrcorp.com *** > > To American Airlines: We, the undersigned, support your gay/lesbian >rights >polices and commend you for your efforts in ending discrimination. >Thank you for your dedication to such issues and please continue to remain >active in the struggle to end discrimination of all kinds. > >1. Marybeth Kurtz, Philadelphia, PA >2. Jen Faust, Goucher College, Balto. MD >3. Heather Riley, UMBC, Balto., MD >4. Katy Schuman, UMBC, Balto., MD >5. Rebekka Gold, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. >6. Danielle Hirsch, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. >7. Jerrod Wendland, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. >8. Jon Morgan, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. >9. Keri Rainsberger, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. >10. Cheryl Lynn Bates, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. >11. Court Singrey, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. >12. Carol Fischer, Indiana University, Bloomington IN. >13. Patrick Wojahn, University of Wisconsin--Madison. >14. Dee Michel, University of Wisconsin--Madison >15. Adam L. Schiff, University of Washington, Seattle, WA >16. Tim Bratsos, San Francisco, CA >17. Craig Hibbs, San Bruno, CA >18. Edwin S. Blacker, Washington, DC >19. R. Thomas Rodriguez, Washington, DC >20. Rumi Matsuyama, Hyattsville, MD >21. Bart Broome, San Francisco, CA >22. John Cordaro, San Francisco, CA >23. Bryan Hughes, San Francisco, CA >24. Linh Pham, San Francisco, CA >25. Eric-Joseph C. Astacaan, Azusa, CA >26. Diane Fujino, Santa Barbara, CA >27. Sally Foxen, Santa Barbara, CA >28. Shirlie Mae Mamaril, Santa Barbara, CA >29. Junar Ortega, Santa Barbara, CA >30. Adam Wolfson, University of California Santa Cruz > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Sun May 18 23:22:26 1997 for ; Sun, 18 May 1997 22:22:19 -0700 (PDT) Sun, 18 May 1997 22:20:51 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 22:20:51 -0700 (PDT) To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu, Labor Research and Action Project From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Re: Mad Cow Disease of No. American Business Sender: meisenscher@igc.org Ellen: I suggest you check out Solinet, a Canadian labor website that provides distance learning via the internet. Contact Marc Belanger for more information. In solidarity, Michael At 12:20 AM 5/17/97 +0100, anzalone/starbird wrote: >>Greetings! > >I have been asked to write a paper on Long Distance Education, any >suggested resources? ellen starbird, at aanz@sirius.com > > > > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Mon May 19 10:15:03 1997 Mon, 19 May 1997 08:45:34 -0700 (PDT) Mon, 19 May 1997 08:43:42 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 08:43:42 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Meeting the Enemy Sender: meisenscher@igc.org Thanks to Art Shostak for passing this along. It may be useful for those of us who have been unable to participate due to being rhetorically challenged or linguisticly disabled. "Symbolic analysts of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your obscurantism." Michael ==================================================== Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 17:16:28 -0400 (EDT) From: MereBphd@aol.com Subject: Soc Humor: HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN by Stephen Katz, Associate Professor, Sociology Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada THE RULES 1. First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of the question. It is too realist, modernist and obvious. Postmodern language requires that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity is a well-acknowledged substitute. For example, let's imagine you want to say something like, "We should listen to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn about the cultural biases that affect us". This is honest but dull. Take the word "views." Postmodernspeak would change that to "voices," or better, "vocalities." or even better, "multivocalities." Add an adjective like "intertextual," and you're covered. "People outside" is also too plain. How about "postcolonial others"? To speak postmodern properly one must master a bevy of biases besides the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For example, phallogocentricism (male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic). Finally "affect us" sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs and phrases, like "mediate our identities." So, the final statement should say, "We should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities." Now you're talking postmodern! 2. Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster even the minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid public disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you say it the right way. This brings me to a second important strategy in speaking postmodern -- which is to use as many suffixes, prefixes, hyphens, slashes, underlinings and anything else your computer (an absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out. You can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three columns. In column A put your prefixes: post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-, re-, ex-, and counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related endings: -ism, -itis, -iality, -ation, -itivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of well-respected names that make for impressive adjectives or schools of thought, for example, Barthes (Barthesian), Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism), Derrida (Derridean, Derrideanism). Now for the test. You want to say or write something like, "Contemporary buildings are alienating." This is a good thought, but, of course, a non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of crackers and cheese at a conference reception with such a line. In fact, after saying this, you might get asked to stay and clean up the crackers and cheese after the reception. Go to your three columns. First, the prefix. Pre- is useful, as is post-, or several prefixes at once is terrific. Rather than "contemporary buildings," be creative. "The Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity" is promising. You would have to drop the weak and dated term "alienating" with some well suffixed words from column B. How about "antisociality", or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the linked phrase, "antisociality/seductivity." Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree is important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to read. Continental European theorists are best, when in doubt. I recommend the sociologist Jean Baudrillard since he has written a great deal of difficult material about postmodern space. Don't forget to make some mention of gender. Finally, add a few smoothing out words to tie the whole garbled mess together and don't forget to pack in the hyphens, slashes and parentheses. What do you get? "Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity (re)commits us to an ambivalent recurrentiality of antisociality/seductivity, one enunciated in a de/gendered-Baudrillardian discourse of granulated subjectivity." You should be able to hear a postindustrial pin drop on the retrocultural floor. 3. At some point someone may actually ask you what you're talking about. This risk faces all those who would speak postmodern and must be carefully avoided. You must always give the questioner the impression that they have missed the point, and so send another verbose salvo of postmodernspeak in their direction as a "simplification" or "clarification" of your original statement. If that doesn't work, you might be left with the terribly modernist thought of, "I don't know." Don't worry, just say, "The instability of your question leaves me with several contradictorily layered responses whose interconnectivity cannot express the logocentric coherency you seek. I can only say that reality is more uneven and its (mis)representations more untrustworthy than we have time here to explore." Any more questions? No, then pass the cheese and crackers. --------- End forwarded message ---------- Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ "This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From bbyrd@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Mon May 19 11:15:10 1997 Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 10:15:06 -0700 (PDT) From: bbyrd@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Barbara Byrd) Subject: Re: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Paul -- I enjoy reading your article -- thanks for letting us know about it. Barbara >Folk stimulated by the current surge of graduate student militancy may be >interested in a strangely & clumsy essay called "The New Academic Underclass >Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age" by yours >truly, Yale 1995. Send me a note & I'll post you a copy. > >Paul Johnston >johnston@cruzio.com Barbara Byrd Labor Education & Research Center University of Oregon 722 S.W. 2nd Ave. Portland, OR 97202 (503) 725-3295 bbyrd@oregon.uoregon.edu From shostaka@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Wed May 21 05:45:05 1997 Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 06:56:06 -0500 To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu From: Art Shostak Subject: Last Opportunity Brothers and Sisters: If any of you are in Manhatten this weekend, the theater run of the Odet's classic play, "Waiting for Lefty" is ending its run. Having seen it last Sunday I recommend it very highly! The production is thoroughly engaging, the ideas still very provacative, the attack on employer mendacity painfully timely, and the call for class solidarity inspiring. Joanne Woodward's direction is stellar, the singing quite moving, and the event one that labor apparachniks, supporters, activists, and educators alike will treasure. I only hope someone convinces the company to commit the event to video lest we fail to have it for years to share with union men and women (and our college naifs). Fraternally, Art Shostak. P.S. At $25 for tickets the play is quite a bargain! Tickets can be ordered at 212-279-4200; the theater is at E.13thst, two blocks from the Strand Book Store. Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ "This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Wed May 21 21:24:18 1997 Wed, 21 May 1997 20:22:59 -0700 (PDT) Wed, 21 May 1997 20:22:08 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 20:22:08 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu.united@cougar.com, OIFAC@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: [PEN-L:10275] Univ of Calif @ Santa Cruz Strike (fwd) Sender: meisenscher@igc.org This fine (no eloquent), moving letter in simple language gets to the heart of what unionism is all about. It deserves to be passed on and shared, as I do with you now. In solidarity, Michael ========================================= > Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 18:18:23 -0400 > Sender: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy > From: Sam Lanfranco > Subject: Univ of Calif @ Santa Cruz Strike > > This is a message from the University of California At Santa Cruz, where a > strike of technical employees is underway at the moment. My own > university, having just gone through a 51-day faculty strike, is rich with > similar stories. - Sam Lanfranco LABOR-L ListManagement > > ----------Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 13:45:35 -0800 > From: Ina Clausen > To: lanfran@yorku.CA > Subject: to share with list > > Our UPTE-CWA Santa Cruz president received this letter. > > wanted to share a letter I received from a UCSC UPTE member, Lance Bresee, > who works for Lick Observatory at UCSC. This letter, to me, expresses what > we should be trying to achieve both individually and collectively. It would > be difficult for me to put into words how I felt when I received this > letter, but "grateful" comes immediately to mind. I also feel proud to be > part of the organization he describes. We make mistakes, but UPTE is a > fine organization and it is made up of many, many fine people. > > Lindey Cloud > President > UPTE-Santa Cruz > > **************************************************************************** > > This morning, when I arrived at work, a coworker told me about driving by > the UPTE members holding the banner at the base of campus, and giving them > the "thumbs down" sign. He seemed proud of this childish gesture. "They > looked at me like they couldn't understand why I would do that." > He said. "Why DID you do that?" I asked, not understanding. > > I heard that he resented the union for costing him pay raises. This logic, > which leads one to conclude that UPTE is responsible for the actions of > the University which a posted notice shows to have been illegal, according > to a PERB ruling, seems to me to be the equivalent of suggesting that > wealthy people, by owning valuable possessions, are responsible for > burglars. > > The reality, which seems clear today after becoming involved myself and > witnessing things which my coworker fearfully avoids looking at, is that > the University is trying to punish the tech unit for becoming unionized, > and they do not care what it costs. The small amount requested for > retroactive pay increases, which one UC Chancellor described as mere > "noise in the system" in the UC budget, has already been exceeded by the > costs of 27 months of bargaining and the moneys held up by the > California State Legislature. > > Recently, while riding back from the UAW picket line with a fellow union > member after a meeting to discuss the current action, my new friend > commented that he had "never expected to get in this deep." We were > both candidates to meet with the Chancellor on that Friday. I never even > thought I would JOIN this union, much less volunteer to represent it in a > face-to-face meeting with the chancellor. > > I did not vote for the union back in 1994. I had no desire to be > represented by a union. When the union won the election, I had no desire > to join. I first started paying dues to the union when the university > illegally withheld the 2.2% raises. I could see that this was a clear > violation of contract law, and knew that UC could not possibly believe this > action legitimate. Therefore, UC was willing to violate the law to punish > the union. This action frightened me; I realized that my employer was > capable of illegal actions in retribution to employees. I knew that we > would have to sue to get the money, and that lawyers did not work for > free, so I began paying union dues. > > I began to become active in the union when I saw my coworkers sitting and > waiting to see if "the union" would get a good contract without support. I > watched as UC negotiators delayed and argued against giving techs the > same raises they gave every one else, occasionally showing up at the last > minute with an excuse rather than a proposal, until they could claim that > retroactive pay could not be provided as it was "already spent." > > In this time I married. My new wife had a child, and another was on the > way. We were living in my one-bedroom apartment, and I knew I needed > better shelter for my family. You can read my story in the current City > on a Hill, but it became clear that, if UC negotiators were successful in > breaking this union, it would mean no raise and a possible pay cut. This > would spell disaster for my family. No longer could I passively sit back > and let these few people do the dirty work of providing for my family by > fighting this new threat. > > As I participated in union meetings, I saw that the nature of the union > changed; I saw the impact of my involvement in the meetings. Even > though I abstained from every vote, choosing instead to serve in whatever > way I could without demanding the right to direct, I could see how my > presence shaped the union. > > I realized that "the union" was not some dubious entity which handed > down edicts from afar, but an organization; a community which would > become what its members made it. I saw that there was work to be done > to win a decent contract, and that, if I was not willing to do it, it would > not be done. I saw that it was time to take personal responsibility for my > working conditions and the support of my family. No longer could I sit > back and complain and wait for "the union" to do its job; "the union" was > me, and the job was mine. > > Regardless of our ability to win a contract, I will always be grateful to > UPTE for shocking my out of my complacency and awakening me to > become an active participant in my own welfare and to a more mature > participation in my community. Many of the problems we face throughout > the US seem the result of a community of passivity where individuals are > content to sit and complain that "the Government" or some other > faceless agency is not doing the job of caring for them as they deem > proper. The people who make a difference in this world are those who see > something which needs to be done, and stop and do it. Now, I count > myself among their number. I was once one of those who sit back and let > others work for my welfare. May God keep me where I am today; a man > who is present for his family and community. > > In a strange way, I am also grateful to the UC negotiators. Had they > negotiated fairly and offered the very same contract we had prior to > electing the union, had they not delayed and lied, there would have been a > quick resolution, and I would never have become involved. I would still be > complacent,letting others take care of the details which effected my life. > I cannot describe how it feels to find myself an active and supportive > member of my community. I could no more have understood it before I took > action than a drunk could understand sobriety. > > I will be there Friday, though this strike was not my idea, to support you > and to work for our collective welfare. > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 22 15:13:48 1997 Thu, 22 May 1997 12:27:43 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 22 May 1997 12:21:21 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 12:21:21 -0700 (PDT) To: united@cougar.com, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: border emergency Sender: meisenscher@igc.org >Return-Path: >Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 17:52:24 -0700 (PDT) >X-Sender: swu@pop.igc.org >To: wkramer@ucla.edu >From: swu@igc.apc.org (southwest workers' union) >Subject: border emergency >Sender: swu@igc.org >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by rho.ben2.ucla.edu id > > >=A1 REPRESSION IN CD. ACU=D1A-LABOR LEADER JAILED ! > >MAQUILADORA WORKER UNJUSTLY FIRED & JAILED BY ARNESES Y ACCESORIOS de >MEXICO S.A. de C.V. > >MARTIN CORDERO was fired Wednesday, May 7, 1997 as a result of an >organizing campaign that has been on-going for the last two (2) years at >Arneses y Accesorios de Mexico, a maquiladora in Cd. Acu=F1a in the Mexican >border state of Coahuila. On Thursday, May 8, Martin presented himself to >work at Arneses but instead was arrested by police Commandant Manuel >Menchaca for supposedly resisting arrest. Martin suspects he was jailed >because Arneses feared the workers would stage a walk out in support of >him. > >Martin worked at Arneses for two and a half years producing wire harnesses >for cars made by the giants carmakers. He earned $38 pesos per day(equals >$5.42 dollars), or $32.52 Dollars per week, $130.08 per month and annually >he makes $1,560.96 ! >COULD YOU LIVE ON $ 1,500. DOLLARS PER YEAR? >Martin, his wife and his daughter until recently, were living in a house >made out of wooden pallets covered with cardboard and roofed with black tar >paper. The house had on room with a dirt floor. One corner was the >kitchen, one corner the bedroom and one other corner the shower area. They >had no running water, no electricity, sewage system, street lighting, or >paved roads. >ALL THE FAMILY WORKS IN THE MAQUILADORAS TO MAKE IT >All three family members, work in the maquiladoras in order to "make it". >The daughter started working at age 16, even though in her heart she would >like to study computers. All of the family are active members of the >Ecclesiastical community base committees locally and deep convictions in >assisting their fellow human beings. > >Martin is a leader of the movement amongst workers at Arneses pushing for >higher wages and better working conditions. "We were working 12 hours >daily, six days a week, at an intense "speed up" of the production line and >it was killing us" explains Martin about what drove them to organize. >Martin recounts, " in June 12, 1996 we had a work stoppage & walk out by >workers at plant #5 of Arneses because we were tired of bad food at the >comedor, tired of having to ask for toliet paper from the line supervisor >everytime they had to go to the bathroom, tired of not having ventilators, >tired of being forced to work overtime or be fired". >WORKERS AT ARNESES SAID, "YA BASTA"-ENOUGH >The struggle in June won some changes but management refused to recognize >or meet with the "Workers Commission" attempting to dialogue over the labor >issues. Arneses, according to Martin, "never forgot the work stoppage and >had revenge on their minds. On several occasions the administrators >offered me money to resign and leave the company which I refused". >ARNESES WAS WAITING FOR REVENGE & REPRESSION >The firing took place on Wednesday, May 7, 1997 at the end of shift at >about 5:00 PM. Martin explained, "management waited when all the workers >were leaving at the end of the shift to fire me. The administrators knew >that tomorrow is the last day of work for the week because Friday is a >holiday (without pay). They had it all planned out." >ARNESES-FACTS ON THE MAQUILADORA >"Arneses Y Accesorios de Mexico produces electrical motors, and wire >harnesses for auto makers such as Nissan, General Motors, and others. In >Cd Acu=F1a they employ some 10,000 workers mostly between 16-25 years of= age. >Arneses also has plants in Torre=F3n, Coahuila, Monterrey, Nuevo Le=F3n and= Cd >Ju=E1rez, Chihuahua. Arneses is a subsidiary of Alcoa-Fujikura Ltd. with >offices in Brentwood, Tennessee in the United States. Fujikura Ltd. is in >turn a subsidiary of Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA)-the aluminum giant >out of Pittsburg, PA... > >Cd Acu=F1a, located across Del Rio, Texas, has become home for over 150 >maquiladoras, or assembly and manufacturing plants in the past 15 years >with a growing workforce well over 150,000 obreras y obreros. The great >majority of maquiladoras are subsidiaries of U.S. fortune 500 companies, >or, Japanese and Korean companies. >ARNESES PAYS LOW WAGES >The border state of Coahuila has the lowest wages for maquiladora workers. >A minimum wage in this state varies from $180 pesos ($2.57 dollars per day) >in the southern half and about $230 pesos ( $3.28 dollars per day) in the >northern half of the state. Workers wages were cut in half when the peso >devalued in December, 1994. Workers make less now than in 1965 when the >maquila program started on the US/Mexico border thirty two years ago. > >WHAT YOU CAN DO? > >SEND A LETTER BY FAX OR MAIL DEMANDING: > > =94FREE MARTIN CORDERO ! > =94DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST MARTIN ! >=94REINSTATE MARTIN TO HIS JOB AT ARNESES ! >=94JUSTICE FOR MAQUILADORA WORKERS ! > >WRITE TO THE COMPANY > >Alcoa Fujikura, Ltd.(AFL) (subsidiary Aluminum Co. of America) >National Headquarters >105 Westpark Dr >Brentwood, TN 37027 >Tl-(615) 370 2100 >Fx-(615) 370 2176 >Attn: Robert Hughes, CEO > >AFL San Antonio Office >12746 Cimarron Path-Ste #116 >San Antonio, TX 78249 >Tl-(210) 208 8700 >Fx-(210) 208 8743 >Human Resources > >ARNESES Y ACCESORIAS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V. >Carr. Presa La Amistad KM 5 >A.P. #658 >26200 Cd. Acu=F1a, Coahuila >Tl-011 52 (877) 2 34 40/ 2 31 80 >Fx-011 52 (877) 2 31 97 >Direct line (210) 774 0012 >Attn Manager > >WRITE TO THE GOVERNOR OF COAHUILA > >C/O Lic. Carlos Juaristi >Tl/Fx-(011) (52) (84) 14 22 60 or, >(011) (52) (84) 14 00 31 >Call first and ask for fax tone > >SEND COPIES OF LETTERS TO: >CENTRO OBRERO DE CD ACUNA C/O (011) (52) (877) 2 68 84 > >xxx > >SAMPLE LETTER > > >ALCOA Fujikura Ltd. >National HQ >105 Westpark Dr >Brentwood, TN. 37027 > >May 8, 1997 > >Mr. Robert Hughes, CEO > >We have gotten news of the hostile anti-worker campaign going on in Cd. >Acu=F1a, Coahuila where you own and operate the Arneses y Accesorios de >Mexico, SA CV maquiladora. > >We know that Martin Cordero was unjustly fired on May 7, 1997, at the end >of his workday. he was fired, in our opinion, because of his organizing >activities at plant #5 where he had worked for 21/2 years. > >Martin presented himself to Arneses #5 for work believing he was unjustly >fired, only to be arrested for standing in front of Arneses on a public >boulevard. His was arrest is the responsibility of your company working >with local police. > >Martin has been a leader to many workers who suffer the low wages you pay >at Arneses and the abuses of administrators there. In June, 1996 workers >did a work stoppage and walk out due to the implorable conditions in the >production line. > >Worker were tired of having to ask for toilet paper every time they had to >go to the bathroom. They were also tired of the forced overtime, the >taking away of some of the bonuses and vacations. > >We demand that Martin be freed immediately, and that he be put back to his >job with all his rights and that he be made whole. We are truly >embarrassed by the violation of worker rights by US companies >(maquiladoras) such as yours. We expect a response to our concerns.. > >xxx > > >=A1 REPRESSION IN CD. ACU=D1A-LABOR LEADER JAILED ! > >MAQUILADORA WORKER UNJUSTLY FIRED & JAILED BY ARNESES Y ACCESORIOS de >MEXICO S.A. de C.V. > >MARTIN CORDERO was fired Wednesday, May 7, 1997 as a result of an >organizing campaign that has been on-going for the last two (2) years at >Arneses y Accesorios de Mexico, a maquiladora in Cd. Acu=F1a in the Mexican >border state of Coahuila. On Thursday, May 8, Martin presented himself to >work at Arneses but instead was arrested by police Commandant Manuel >Menchaca for supposedly resisting arrest. Martin suspects he was jailed >because Arneses feared the workers would stage a walk out in support of >him. > >PROTEST PICKETT LINE >=A1FREE MARTIN CORDERO! > >ALCOA-Fujikura Ltd. >12746 Cimmarron Path >Suite 16 >San Antonio, TX >(EXIT DE ZAVALA OFF IH 10 WEST) > >11:30 AM >FRIDAY >MAY 9, 1997 > > >PRESS NOTICE > >May 8, 1997 >Contact: Ruben Solis-Phone (210) 299-2666 > >WHAT: Southwest Public Workers' Union (SPWU) along with other unions, >community based and human rights organizations will be protesting at the >offices of Alcoa Fujikura, Ltd. (AFL). >WHEN: Friday, August 9, 1997 > >TIME: 12:00 NOON > >WHERE: Office of Alcoa Fujikura, Ltd. > 12746 Cimarron Path-Ste #116 > SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS > >WHY: Martin Cordero was fired Wednesday, May 7, 1997, as a result of an >organizing campaign that has been on-going for the last two years at >Arneses y Acessorios de Mexico, a maquiladora in Cd. Acu=F1a in the Mexican >border state of Coahuila. On Thursday, May 8, Martin presented himself to >work at Arneses but instead was arrested by police Commandant Manuel >Menchaca for supposedly resisting arrest. Martin suspects he was jailed >because Arneses feared the workers would stage a walk out in support of >him. > > Martin worked at Arneses for two and a half years >producing wire harnesses for cars made by the giant carmakers. He earned >$38 pesos per day (equals $5.42 dollars), or $32.52 per week, $130.08 per >month and annually he makes $1560.96! > > Since the passage of the North American Free Trade >Agreement in 1993 thousands of jobs have been lost. Thousands of Mexican >workers are being super exploited being paid only about three dollars per >day with terrible working conditions and no occupational health and safety. >In addition, the Mexican Peso devaluated and Mexico's foriegn debt >increased. > > >JUSTICIA Y DIGNIDAD > > > XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX William Kramer =20 UCLA LAMAP Coordinator =20 1001 Gayley--2nd Floor =20 Los Angeles, CA 90024 =20 310-794-0698 =20 310-794-8017 fax =20 wkramer@ucla.edu =20 www.lamap.org =20 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX From aanz@sirius.com Sun May 25 00:08:04 1997 for ; Sat, 24 May 1997 23:07:32 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 23:06:31 -0700 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: aanz@sirius.com (anzalone/starbird) Subject: Re: Mad Cow Disease of No. American Business >Thanks! Ellen: > >I suggest you check out Solinet, a Canadian labor website that provides >distance learning via the internet. Contact Marc Belanger > for more information. > >In solidarity, >Michael > >At 12:20 AM 5/17/97 +0100, anzalone/starbird wrote: >>>Greetings! >> >>I have been asked to write a paper on Long Distance Education, any >>suggested resources? ellen starbird, at aanz@sirius.com >> >> >> >> From shostaka@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Sun May 25 10:18:01 1997 Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 11:27:56 -0500 To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu From: Art Shostak Subject: Of Possible help to Union Activists Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 01:19:08 -0700 From: esommer@direct.ca (eric steven sommer) Subject: Stewards Planetary House News. Hi there, A new philosophy work is in process of being posted at the Stewards Planetary House website. Sixty chapters of `The Mind of The Steward: Inquiry-Based Philosophy For The 21St Century' are already posted, with more to come. This work, seven years in preperation, sets-out a highly coherent new philosophical worldview which includes: 1. A set of basic categories clarifying the inter-connected nature of experience, beings, interaction, and networks. 2. An inquiry-based theory of knowledge, rooted in experience and scientific method, but going beyond traditional notions to make inquiry an instrument for exploring and reconstructing all areas of life and experience in order to promote greater being for all the beings involved. 3. A revolutionary `law of being' called `Arta' which is also rooted in experience, being, and interaction. 4. A new model of human nature as a `body-mind-I' system. 5. A new expanded conception of inquiry. 6. An application of the aforementioned concepts and principals to `advanced matters' such as the nature and development of synergies, organizations, and networks. The URL for this work is: http:///www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphmndi.htm Background The Stewards Planetary House is a new just-being-born movement of working and non-working poor people who seek to become increasingly able to work together to care for one another togther with the planet. Our approach is highly inquiry-oriented and includes new methods of social organization, economics, information technology, childcare, personal development, care of the earth, and much else. The SPH combines the seven ways people have traditionally sought liberation: The human potential movment, progressive social change, religion or spirituality, ecology, feminism, progressive art, and science. The Stewards Planetary House is open to all poor people, wherever they may be on the planet. People are needed to help us to begin our program of `organizing the poor people of the world - beginning with ourselves - to work together as Stewards to care for one another together with the world. The URL for our homepage, where you can read about us, and connect with us, is: http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphhome.htm Be sure to check out `The Stewards Corporation: A Corporation of A New Type' when you are at our site. It's accessable from a link in the homepage and in `What's New?' =================== The Stewards Planetary House ======================= "Organizing the Planetary Underclass of working and non-working poor people as the Stewards or caretakers of the World." http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphhome.htm =======================Personal Information ============================ Information on the Center for Total Human development and my personal projects and networking document: http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/ ======================================================================== Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ "This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From johnston@cruzio.com Sun May 25 10:47:59 1997 Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 10:47:56 -0600 (MDT) To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: Paul Johnston Subject: Re: New Academic Underclass on the Move Again >Paul > >Pls send the essay! > >Regards > >Mark > Mark: delighted. Paul The New Academic Underclass Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age by Paul Johnston Yale University March 1994 In this article, I review the status and prospects of the new academic underclass of working graduate students and part-time, temporary, non-tenure-track faculty. This is both an essay on contingent academic work in the informational age and a think piece for organizers, as it analyzes the unique conditions of employment that define this workforce as a strategic context for labor and professional organization. Drawing on pioneering work by adjunct faculty advocates, it arrives at an organizing strategy tailored to this workforce. This approach suits the present period of crisis and creative innovation in labor relations, as the very meanings of work, unionism, and labor organizing have become uncertain and open to re-definition. The article grew from discussions on the internet. Main points are put up front and expanded upon in a set of mini-essays down back. Some Startling Facts Graduate student instructors aside, part-time and full-time-temporary faculty now account for a staggering 60% of the teaching appointments in U.S. post-secondary education, with around 40% in part-time or adjunct status and 20% in full-time temporary positions. The growth of this contingent workforce appears irreversible. Trends in union membership and organization in this new academic underclass depart sharply from widespread decline elsewhere. Despite great obstacles to organizing, part-time faculty are already better organized than the eligible U.S. workforce as a whole, and rival the construction trades as best-organized segment of the growing contingent or temporary workforce in the U.S. Labor movements among graduate students--in effect, probationary members of the new academic underclass--have swept the U.S. over the past decade. And recent history has also produced a network of adjunct faculty activists whose experience has provided lessons which support the agenda outlined here. These are promising conditions, both for internal organizing in already-represented workforces and for further organizational growth. In a Nutshell Strategically significant conditions of employment for contingent academic workers include: (1) their concentration in public or quasi-public organizations, (2) their temporary or contingent status, (3) the conflicting and complementary interests of tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, (4) their status as educational workers in the emerging informational age, (5) their disproportionately female (and white) composition, and (6) their position in a peculiar system of educational stratification. None of these conditions are unique to this group. Their intersection, however, defines the unique strategic context facing the new academic underclass as it confronts the lean, mean university in the informational age. Strategic agendas for this context must combine effective responses to each of these conditions. Taken in order, these six conditions require: (1) a coalitional strategy of public service unionism, centered on the growing public interest in education; (2) the construction of resource networks external to the workplace, partly via new information technology; (3) an autonomous voice for contingent faculty, ideally within the same union or professional organization as traditional faculty; (4) a particular leadership role in the larger society, as resources and advocates for educational opportunity; (5) alliances and merger, to a degree, with other social movements; finally (6), assertion of the social and intellectual worth of this devalued work. Together, these points define a coherent campaign strategy for equity and opportunity in academic work. This campaign should be conducted, moreover, within a broader campaign among other educational employees, students and related groups against the current Republican assault on educational opportunity. Summaries of key conditions and their implications: 1. These are public and quasi-public employees, concentrated in public and publicly-funded workplaces, and their labor movement is even more concentrated in public agencies. Success depends on recourse to strategies of public service unionism, which have succeeded in recent decades while conventional business unionism has failed. Demands must be framed as legitimate claims. They must appeal, that is, to the public interest: to universalistic standards of equality and justice, and to the public service mission of the agency. When they do, they can serve as potent political resources. Power depends heavily on groups' ability use such demands to organize formal or informal coalitions: not, mainly, economic coalitions within their own labor market, but policy coalitions across the political-bureaucratic divisions of public work. Such coalitions can align workers and clients and others in grassroots efforts to defend and reform public services, to promote alternative policy agendas, and to assemble supportive political blocs within the ever-broadening political universe that envelops the public agency. 2. These are the "out-sourced" employees of the lean, mean university of the future. Most are subject to low pay and uncertain employment status, marginalized in their profession as well as their employment, often working for multiple employers. An important minority are elsewhere employed in the trade for which they teach--and so can serve as strategic coalition-builders--but most are not, and most would prefer full-time academic employment. A central agenda for labor and professional organization in the new contingent workforce is to build organization that replaces the lost infrastructure of the workplace. Two forms of organization appear most important: discipline-based national professional associations, and local community-based labor organizations. Local organization should center not on some individual employer, but in the local labor market, for which it may seek to serve as a quasi-hiring hall or employment registry; also in the local polity, where it can link adjunct faculty interests to broader interests in educational opportunity. Local goals can include imposing standards on employers, organizing social support among members, securing collective professional and other resources; also, participating in policy coalitions with other constituencies in education and with others concerned with the status of temporary workers, while establishing an active presence in larger context of local politics. All this requires strong staff resources and stable institutions--regular meetings and social events, employer practices that reinforce the organization, electronic information centers--to anchor its scattered and part-time workforce. Used as a supplement (and not a substitute) for face-to-face organizing, email systems are likely to sharply strengthen such efforts. 3. These contingent faculty have an ambivalent relationship to the conventional academic workforce, with both common and potentially conflicting interests. Both economic and professional status issues can be framed in a ways which either unite or divide the two groups. Support for the tenure system should be accompanied by demands for wage and benefit parity and for the extension of tenure status among part-time faculty. Organizations dominated by tenure-track faculty are more likely to exclude or poorly serve adjuncts, while separate organizations are more likely to result in competition rather than solidarity, though neither outcome is inevitable. The arrangements most conducive to compromise and mutual support would guarantee an autonomous voice and some autonomous resources within a single umbrella organization. 4. These are educational workers in the emerging informational age, in which education is both more integrated with practice and increasingly decisive for the fate of individuals and societies. Contingent faculty are an important part of the labor movement in education because they bear the brunt of restructuring in education, and because they serve the adult working class. Though peripheral to the old university, they may become more central to the emerging new social structure by virtue of their boundary-spanning position between education and other activities. For this workforce, as for the rest of the labor movement in education, public service unionism means a societal coalition for educational equity and opportunity. Educational opportunity may be a potent "wedge issue" in response to the current Republican assault on public services, and adjunct faculty can be key coalition-builders in this campaign. The strength of their organizations and the future status of this workforce depends in part on their role in this potential coalition. 5. These are disproportionately female workers relative to the tenured faculty, and women are particularly concentrated in certain parts of the contingent workforce. The work of adjuncts is devalued in part because it is more likely to be performed by women. Movements in this workforce may also be grassroots feminist movements, and demands such as those sketched above can be framed as demands for gender justice. Also, non-white racialized groups are greatly under-represented among all faculty, and this is a focus of social movement activity among students. Alignment with these social movements can add political force to demands, promote cross-gender and cross-cultural coalitions in the workforce, and open up other alliance possibilities as well. 6. Class, race, gender and other inequalities are mapped on a peculiar system of educational stratification, in which our "worth" (and self-worth) is measured by our position in a hierarchy of credentialed academic status. Thus, success or failure is explained neither by the shape of this pyramid nor by the broader structure of unequal opportunity that largely determines our position in it, but by an ideology of individual merit. Increasingly, restructuring in education detaches faculty status from scholarly achievement, intensifying the devaluation of scholarship and making status more and more arbitrary. The upshot is devaluation, widely and deeply felt in the educational world, even among faculty at elite universities. The devalued intellectual and academic merit and social worth of the work of these faculty members is a shared grievance, and its assertion can serve as a strategic resource (or, better, a "discursive" resource). It can infuse the culture of organizing in much the same way that the feminist impulse has infused comparable worth movements for wage parity among female workers. It can do so, moreover, in a manner that affirms rather than denies standards of scholarly achievement. (See "Revaluing Education" below.) Campaign for Educational Equity and Opportunity Taken together, these are the elements of a viable campaign strategy. This strategy should be grasped within the context of the broader conditions faced by the labor movement in education today. Those conditions call, as argued above, for an education-centered brand of public service unionism, focused on a societal agenda to defend and expand "educational opportunity." This requires the construction of labor-community coalitions centered on the school site and supported at district, state and federal levels, promoting anti-bureaucratic reforms while defending public education, and targeting local, state and federal elected officials responsible for the current assault on educational opportunity. The agenda outlined above locates the contingent academic workforce's strategic agenda squarely at the heart of that broader coalition. At the same time, it asserts some particular claims which might be captured under the rubric of "educational equity." The demand for equity can be framed as protest against unequal educational opportunity, as protest against the exploitation of "permanent temporaries," as demand for equal pay for equal work among professional colleagues, as appeal to the academy's own standards of value based on professional performance and intellectual merit rather than employment status, as assertion of the worth of so-called "women's work," and as affirmation of the value of the systematically devalued work of most professionals in post-secondary education. (Nicely, the double meaning of "educational equity" also invokes an agenda for investment in workers' own human capital.) Labor movements and organizations depend on social networks among those involved. Historically, these networks were built upon existing workplace relations and neighborhood-based ethnicity. So the fragmented organization of academic work, compounded here by part-time employment and marginalized status, is a major barrier to organizing the new academic workforce. It can only be bridged by new organizations deliberately built to replace the lost infrastructure of workplace and neighborhood. It remains to be seen whether new electronic media will allow organizers to construct networks that bridge this isolation. But local email systems, perhaps organized through a web page and linked to national web sites for each professional group, do offer intriguing new resources. Though many adjunct faculty do not have access yet to online services, this group is well-represented in the explosively growing new "wired workforce." In California and elsewhere in the U.S., adjunct advocates report increased use of email systems as a communication tool. Though organization-building requires face-to-face meeting, group decision-making and collective action, a well-designed electronic network can serve as the gossamer strand across which more substantial organization can be built: a connecting link, a coordinating mechanism, a virtual memory, and a shared public space. A model campaign should include, then, the development of a prototype electronic communication system. Such a page might begin as a bulletin board and information center for local job postings, course materials, and meetings. Over time, competent organizers can transform a local network of contingent faculty gathered around such a site into a membership-based organization, through organizing information and framing decision-making processes that unfold into collective action. (See "More on the Model Campaign" below.) (The remaining sections are mini-essays expanding on points flagged above. I begin with more on the last point--the model campaign--then take up the other topics in the order they appear.) More on the Model Campaign Select a region. Identify all local sources of contingent teaching work. Develop relationships with existing networks within that workforce, and build an organizing committee that links them. Initiate an internet "information center," providing perhaps information on job openings, regular meetings and social gatherings, ways to share curricular material, connections to professional resources, related news & discussion groups, and also linkage to research services, to libraries, and to national listservs run in related professional groups and labor organizations. Use this system to nurture social networks, and tie it into face-to-face gatherings, social and otherwise. Participate in, help to build and perhaps lead a broad local coalition in defense of educational funding. Participate in elections. Hold an annual local conference--in conjunction with other occupational groups, labor organizations, and other constituencies served--that assembles adjunct faculty, underscores/asserts the intellectual merit and social worth of their work while deepening their alliance and affiliation to other interests on campuses and in the community served. In the present period, such a conference might focus on "responding to the Republican assault on educational opportunity." When a strong-enough organizational base is built among adjunct faculty and in its network of coalitions, organize a process of decision-making around a demand to be made on all local academic employers (perhaps something as simple as posting job openings), and on collective action to achieve it. This is an agenda for building a local network, more than a local labor organization in the conventional collective bargining mold. Revenues would not necessarily come through regular payroll deduction, nor would representational processes depend on collective bargaining law. Rather, it may be possible to organize revenue though subscription payments to the local list-serv, and to organize labor-management interactions through extra-legal processes. Recent trends, discussed below, suggest that such efforts can build on present openings to overcome the excessive and crippling degree of inter-organizational rivalry among labor organizations in education. They should be co-sponsored by the independent faculty organizations, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). This agenda suggests a new role for the increasingly-defunct labor studies programs, beyond their historical mission of training people to participate in conventional collective bargaining relationships. As the link between campus and labor unions, they can potentially help unions adopt a role as organizer of occupationally-relevant education. More generally, by incorporating a far broader definition of "labor studies," they can move onto much stronger intellectual as well as practical ground. Their own instructors, of course, are usually already adjunct. A local labor studies program might serve as the institutional base for the organizing effort sketched here. Strategic Context Analysis and Labor Movement Innovation Strategic context analysis is analysis of conditions of employment from the standpoint of the organizer. It aims to help produce a strategic agenda, or a model campaign strategy suited to this peculiar context. From this perspective, conditions of employment are treated as a context within which employees and their unions, professional organizations and related groups may mobilize and organize. Two related questions appear: what particular conditions of employment may be relevant for labor and professional organization? and, what are the strategic implications of these conditions? The next few paragraphs discuss this "strategic context" approach to the analysis of work and labor relations, and its relevance to the current period of crisis and innovation in U.S. labor relations. This approach challenges taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of a job, the character of a union or professional association, and the practices of organizers. It is particularly suited to this period in U.S. labor relations, as global economic, political and technological restructuring have undermined the conditions that sustained both traditional unionism and traditional professional associations. Most U.S. labor and professional organizations have been slow to adapt, and so become disoriented and disorganized. As a result, in the past decade, a great part of the U.S. labor movement has entered into a condition of creative distress. Aware that our inherited scripts are no longer adequate, we grope for new strategies suited to new conditions. Perhaps the most important feature of this period is openness to innovation, which can produce new models of organization or campaign strategies tailored for particular segments of the workforce: based on a careful analysis of that particular strategic context, drawing on the lessons of other efforts but careful not to mechanically transplant formulas from different settings, and framed as model campaign strategies that might be replicated in similar circumstances. Because conditions vary sharply across the workforce, no single new model is likely to emerge. Most of the significant new innovations, however, involve the construction of new bridges between labor and community organization. An essential requirement now is to fashion and "field-test" specific campaign strategies suited to the particular conditions of particular workforces. Measuring the New Academic Underclass The National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) 1988 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty found that 20% of academic appointments were full-time temporary and 38% were part-time. The latter figure (which does not include graduate student teaching assistants) more than doubles the 18% part-time found in 1970. At the time of this survey, public community colleges employed the highest proportion of part-timers (52%) while public research universities employed the least (14.4%). (Research institutions, of course, rely heavily on graduate student instructors not counted by the NCES survey.) Full-time temporary appointments were more evenly distributed, ranging from 10% to 14%, except for public community colleges, where they rise to 25% (and to 71% in the minuscule private two-year college faculty). This survey is summarized (along with a useful set of policy recommendations) in the (1993) "Report on the Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty", by the AAUP's Committee G on Part-time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments. The NCES survey was repeated in 1993. The more recent survey produced a smaller (though still considerable) estimate of 33% part-time faculty, compared to the 38% found five years earlier (Zimbler, 1994). This apparent decline puzzles many observers, as it conflicts with other recent evidence (Robinson, 1994; El-Khawas, 1993) and with widespread informal reports of increased part-time and temporary employment in recent years. A closer examination of these studies, however, supports the judgements that (a) the NCES studies do not provide reliable evidence on the precise percentage of part-time versus full-time faculty employment, and (b) the 1993 finding of 33% understates the actual volume of part-time college teaching employment. There has been a great spate of recent publications, popular and scholarly on the new academic underclass. The best recent qualitative study is Judith Gappa and David Leslie's recent (1993) The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-Timers in Higher Education, which (relying on the 1988 NCES data and their own more qualitative research) surveys the status of this workforce, analyzes reasons for its expansion, and makes recommendations (to employers) for improving its status. They disaggregate this workforce into four groups: one minuscule group of "career enders," and three other broad groups: specialists with a primary career elsewhere, freelancers holding a variety of part-time positions, and aspiring academics (p. 47-49). All of these groups are likely to expand in the future, though the last may eventually decline as the current restructuring of education continues. Also useful is Emily Abel's (1984) Terminal Degrees: The Job Crisis in Higher Education, which focuses on the blocked mobility aspirations of this workforce, while arguing that their prospects depend on rejecting such aspirations and instead organizing as part-timers. A third recent source is Perry Robinson's (1994) Part-Time Faculty Issues, published by the AFT as a resouce for union organizers in this workforce. An excellent--and delightfully interactive--current source of qualitative information on this workforce is the "adjunct-faculty" list-serv (adjunct-faculty@NMSU.edu). Like a massive focus group, the list-serv is filled with dialogue among adjunct faculty activists regarding their own experience, conditions of employment, current and past efforts to organize and views on various topics. Participants here can also receive information about other discipline-specific lists. The Growth of Adjunct Faculty Organization Importantly, trends in faculty union membership run directly contrary to the pattern of decline in the private sector labor movement since the mid-1950s (Troy, 1986; Goldfield, 1987), as faculty union membership grew from zero in 1962 to 24% by 1982 (Garabino, 1986). Part-time faculty union membership grew in the same period so that by 1987, according to the 1988 NCES survey, 26 percent of all part-time faculty worked for institutions where recognized bargaining units included at least some part-timers; 14% were at institutions where units included all part-timers. It is probably safe to conclude that though as yet only minimally organized this is--with the exception of the construction trades, where representation has been declining for decades--the best-organized segment of the growing contingent or temporary workforce in the U.S. Because of their dispersed and marginalized status, formal representation does not necessarily translate into full participation in labor organization. Just as significant as past trends in union representation, however, is growth in the organizational capacities of this workforce. The American Federation of Teachers--often in coalition with the AAUP--has been particularly aggressive in organizing part-time faculty. While the NEA and the AAUP have placed particular emphasis on limiting the use of part-time faculty, both have also endorsed improved status and pay. Despite pockets of ambivalence about support for part-timers, both organizations increasingly seek to include them in bargaining arrangements (See NEA, 1988; AAUP, 1993). Several recent developments, moreover, suggest the growth of organizational capacity based squarely among adjunct faculty themselves. These include the 1993 formation and rapid growth of the National Adjunct Faculty Guild, and the Guild's bimonthly adjunct advocate, a magazine dedicated to part-time faculty issues and emphasizing resources for organizers and activists (both at PO Box 130117, Ann Arbor, MI 48113); also the 1994 formation of the Adjunct Faculty Union Network of America (AFUNA), a national coalition of adjunct faculty unions, (PO Box 15152, Ann Arbor, MI 48106). Another indication is the vitality and steady growth since 1991 of the Ohio-centered pro-fess-ing (336 Park Ave., Kent, Oh., 44240), "an organ for those who teach undergraduates" which has become a forum of advocacy for part-timers. Centers of adjunct faculty organization have also recently surfaced in professional organizations containing concentrations of adjuncts, such as TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) and MLA (Modern Language Association), and a caucus is now in formation among adjunct writing teachers at the national Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). The Internet list-serv described above was launched in early 1995, by a circle of adjunct faculty activists at a community college in New Mexico; it blossomed quickly into a nation-wide forum for participants in these and similar organizations. The growth of temporary and adjunct faculty unionism is a nation-wide phenomenon, but is concentrated--like the rest of the labor movement in education--in public institutions (on this see more below). It is strongest at the level of community colleges, typically more than 50% staffed by contingent faculty, and weakest in research universities (where graduate student instructors are likely to play a parallel role, and have produced a parallel labor movement in recent years). It is particularly advanced in the State of California; there, significantly, a network of joint affiliations and joint activities by various organizations representing contingent faculty and other educational professionals reflect significant progress in overcoming the inter-organizational rivalry which has crippled the U.S. labor movement in education. Part-time and temporary faculty at California's community colleges are organized by the California Federation of Teachers (AFT), the California Teachers Association (NEA), and the California Community College Independents (a coalition of unaffiliated unions). In that state, these and other faculty organizations now combine to convene annual northern and southern California "Part-Timer Empowerment Conferences." Also, temporary and adjunct faculty in California's massive state college system have been represented since 1983 by the California Faculty Association, jointly affiliated with the NEA's California Teachers Association, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the AAUP. All this suggests that growing numbers of adjunct faculty are grappling, with some success, with the obvious handicaps to organizing presented by their contingent and part-time status. There now exists, it would appear, an accumulated pool of experienced leaders and an organizational infrastructure with the capacity for further mobilization through both internal and external organizing. None of the efforts mentioned above are certain to produce major breakthroughs in contingent faculty organizing; in fact the experience of other occupational groups suggest that most progress is slow, and most initiatives falter and fail. But these developments do reflect a pattern of gradual progress in this field taken as a whole, as it accumulates the experience and develops the networks which will increase the likelihood of future success. Other historical experience also suggests that when and if a breakthrough does come it will build on that experience and those networks. It would be triggered, most likely, by a particular crisis, and it would crystallize around effective innovations in organizing, and/or around a particularly expressive form of collective action. According to the argument made here, the current Republican assault on educational opportunity may offer such a strategic opening, and the current explosion in new electronic communications capacities may promote significant breakthroughs for organizing that builds on all this recent progress. Public Service Unionism The labor movement in education is overwhelmingly a public sector phenomenon. The public workplace produces a unique labor movement--sometimes as "association," sometimes as "union," sometimes outside the bounds of conventional labor organization altogether--which departs radically from the varieties of private sector unionism. It is impossible to grasp the character, history, pitfalls and historical prospects of the labor movement in education without locating it in this context, as a public workers' movement. Fully 70% of all faculty--full-time and part-time--are public employees. Union organization, moreover, is still more concentrated in public colleges and universities. Contingent faculty are no exception. According to the 1988 NCES survey, 30% of part-timers at community colleges and 42% of those at public four-year colleges worked at colleges with bargaining units including part-time faculty, with 19% and 24%, respectively, at colleges with bargaining units including ALL part-time faculty. By contrast, only 10% of those in the private sector worked at colleges with bargaining units including part-time faculty, and only 1% of those units included all part-timers. Taken as a whole, the public sector labor movement departs from the private sector labor movement not only in contrary historical trends in union membership, but also in its essential character. There is near-unanimous agreement among students of public sector labor relations that the public agency is a distinctive context for labor relations. I review this literature elsewhere (Johnston, 1994), and there also develop a theory of the consequences of that strategic context for the character and historical role of the public workers' movement. The key point, for our purposes here, is that the fortunes of particular groups of public employees and their organizations depends on their status in (or exclusion from) the coalitional political universe that envelops the public agency. It would be simplistic, however, to draw a sharp contrast between public and private sector labor relations in education because, as in health care, many "private" institutions are in fact on the cusp of the public and private sectors, with non-profit status, heavily subsidized and regulated through the public sector, and so at least purportedly serving the public interest. Much of the conflict which emerges in this border region, including labor-management conflict, concerns the extent to which the different logics of public organization or private profit will prevail. Public sector unionism can and does emerge on this soil, seeking to draw these organizations closer to the realm of public accountability. It would also be a mistake to contrast public service unionism to one particular model of private sector unionism; that sector has produced diverse models of unionism, and those market-oriented models most familiar to people in the United States are today increasingly regarded--even among the staff of private sector labor unions themselves--as obsolete. Nor does the peculiar logic of public organization fully define the character and possibilities of public service unionism. Governing coalitions, their policy agendas, and the organization of public work itself are inevitably shaped as well by political and fiscal and other influences rooted in capitalist class relations and in changing race, gender and ethnic relations; for the most part, beyond our scope here. The logic of public organization does define how political bureaucracies respond to these influences, however, and decisively determines what kinds of resources will empower public employees and their organizations. Specifically, successful public worker movements depend on resources effective in political bureaucracy: mainly, participation in viable coalitions in which their own particular interests are linked to the interests of those they serve, and framed as "the public interest." Although they are neglected in contemporary political sociology and entirely obscured in state theory, public workers and their unions have emerged as among the most important advocates and coalition-builders for many public agendas, including public education. Their fate--and, increasingly, the fate of the services they seek to provide--depend in good measure on their relationship to the policy coalitions that govern or that seek to challenge the governance of their agencies. These are not merely electoral coalitions, nor can they be quickly assembled to bolster collective bargaining; rather, they depend on shared allegiances to overarching policy agendas, articulated by leaders but anchored in day-to-day ways of work and interaction in and around the workplace. Unlike the coalitions decisive for most private sector unionisms--within occupational groups, across workplaces, among workers in the same labor market--these coalitions extend across bureaucratic boundaries, among different kinds of workers, and between workers, clients and other participants within the political universe of a single public agency. They are akin to the familiar policy coalitions which typically align various interests in the governance--or challenging the governance--of every public agency. Their "boundary-crossing" character means they may be tenuous and hard to organize within the framework of the constituents' conventionally-defined interests; intriguingly, though, they can be positively energized when assembled around anti-bureaucratic reform agendas. In this view, the public worker movement moves as much outside as within the familiar channels of lobbying and collective bargaining around wages and benefits. It includes, for example, campaigns to defend and reform and expand public services. Public workers also mobilize effectively around elections, budget processes, and other openings for collective action and political conflict within and around public agencies. Strikes, when effective, are not simply work stoppages but rather creative political mobilizations. Organizing Solidarity in a Two-Tiered Academic Workforce Despite some ambivalence, the major academic labor and professional organizations are committed to improving the status and pay of part-time faculty. But there are tensions between this agenda and efforts to defend the beleaguered tenure system. Not surprisingly, leaders of labor and professional organizations mainly based in the tenure-track workforce are likely to stress limiting the proportion of faculty in this status, and some are skeptical of efforts to organize them. Tensions between tenure-track and adjunct faculty reflect a familiar pattern of competition, provoked by the availability of low-wage labor and calling for a good dose of labor-market solidarity. As with the tensions between skilled and unskilled labor, U.S. and foreign labor, and permanent and temporary employment in other occupations, the standard argument is that tenured and non-tenure-track employees will both benefit by "raising the floor," or increasing the cost and so reducing the abuse of contingent faculty. Each can trace their problems to politically-imposed constraints on educational funding, and each can ally with the other within a larger coalition in defense of public education. However, the interests of the two groups may not be easily reconciled. The reason for the two faculties is that the one sustains the other: the low costs and heavy undergraduate teaching loads of the have-nots help make possible the continuation of a tenure system that protects the jobs and perquisites of the haves. Because tenured faculty benefit directly and personally from the bifurcation of the academic profession, they have a vested interest in maintaining it (Gappa & Leslie, 1993:2). Gappa and Leslie argue, in effect, that resources for academic salaries are so powerfully constrained that an agenda emphasizing defense of the status and pay of tenure-track faculty amounts to tacit acceptance of continued and expanded exploitation of temps. Clearly, there is great potential for the tension between these "two faculties" to unfold into a direct conflict of interests. Also clearly, both parties have an interest in a compromise of some sort, to clear the way for a broader coalition to defend or expand the absolute size of the budget for academic personnel. Which of these things occurs in a particular case is likely to be a contingent political question, answered differently depending on strategic choices made by leaders in both occupational groups. Brokering a compromise that produces mutual solidarity requires attention both to issues and to organizational structure. Shared issues, of course, are an important resource for solidarity, and the current political and fiscal climate provides opportunities for common cause in defense of education. Particularly critical, though, is mutual support on matters particular to each workforce, especially the potentially divisive issue of tenure status. As suggested above, support by part-time faculty and their allies for the tenure system should be conditioned on support by regular faculty and their organizations for wage and benefit parity, and for the extension of tenure options among part-time faculty. Prospects for coalition also depend heavily on organizational structure. Perversely, competition is likely to be promoted both by competing organizations (which may escalate this tension to the point of animosity) and by homogenous membership within the same organization (which threatens to swallow the interests and smother the voice of the weaker party). A third strategy may hold the most promise: some degree of autonomy--ideally in a separate bargaining unit or some autonomous form of internal organization--within the same union or professional association. Educational Labor in the Informational Age We do not yet know what will be the consequences of the current informational revolution for the labor movement in education. We do recognize the increasing importance of knowledge (Marshall and Tucker, 1992) and information technology (Hyman & Streek, 1988) in production; we also recognize the growing importance of schooling in mediating and legitimating (precisely through its promise of impartiality and emphasis on merit and ability) inequalities based in race, class and gender (Carnoy & Levin, 1985, Dougherty, 1994). We know too that, within the overarching context of global capitalist restructuring (Schiller, 1981), the accelerating revolution in information technology is helping to remake our organizations, our work life, even our experience of everyday life (Piore & Sabel, 1985; Zuboff, 1988). Certainly, the impact of schooling on individuals, communities and societies will only increase in the coming period, and so the politics of education are likely to be increasingly important as well. Especially if, as I have argued, the character and fate and effects of labor movements in public and publicly funded workplaces are bound up with the policy agendas and political coalitions that define and govern their policy domains, then these trends should have profound consequences for the labor movement in education. At the very least, we can expect its potential to influence social change to increase. The growth of the new academic underclass reflects the convergence of a variety of factors, including sweeping changes in the character of organizations and the role of education as we enter the informational age, demographic trends affecting supply and demand for both faculty and students, the weak labor market position of faculty spouses with academic training, the fiscal crisis in state and local government, and the priorities and choices of academic administrators. Perversely, recent decades show a growth in the use of part-time faculty in both tight and soft labor markets: in technical fields, for example, as well as the humanities. The status of this workforce is a leading example of the broad trend toward among organizations toward increased flexibility--and increased exploitation--through contingent employment (Harrison, 1994). As expanding organizations swallowed much of society during the 20th century, they provided (or promised to provide) the resources and social support previously found in extended families and ethnic communities. Today, corporate downsizing and related developments are expelling people into a civil society stripped of traditional resources (Perrow, 1995). A potential role for labor and professional organizations seeking to re-define themselves in this age of increasingly contingent employment is to rebuild these eroding infrastructures on new terms. This means reconstructing a variety of social networks and other resources which had previously been embedded in large organizations and in ethnic neighborhoods. It may mean organizing contingent labor itself: depending on the labor market, through hiring halls on the model of construction trades, nonprofit community-based agencies, or worker-owned cooperatives. It probably means advocacy for the publicly provided "social wage" of childcare, nutrition programs, housing policy, health services, and education, in coalition with blocs of public workers employed in each of these policy domains. And it certainly means advocacy for--and in some cases, direct provision of--the increasingly crucial resource of continuing education and training (Kern & Sabel, 1992). In a labor market increasingly polarized between relatively high-wage, high-skill jobs and low-wage low-skill jobs, entire occupational groups find the value of their existing stock of skill undermined by technological change. Increasing employer emphasis on employees' knowledge base and problemsolving ability, decreasing employer commitment to individual workers, and the increasing importance of credentialing for sorting workers onto a narrowing pyramid of economic opportunity all expand the importance of accessible post-secondary adult education for individual workers, their families and their local communities. For the working-class majority in non-elite four-year and community college institutions, this means education provided disproportionately by adjunct faculty. Particularly important are faculty whose subject matter, student base, or other affiliation ties them to a particular occupational group, including those who also work in that group's trade or profession. Their privileged relationship to the increasingly important resource of knowledge and skill and their boundary-spanning position between the workforce, educational institutions, and perhaps employer networks in industry can enhance their resources, their opportunities for alliance, and their capacities for leadership. This is a special constituency among part-time faculty, likely to hold dual membership in other occupational or community organizations. It should be considered a resource rather than a liability: a strategic bridge for broader coalition-building with other occupational and community organizations. For several reasons, though, the demand for educational opportunity is unlikely to be satisfied. Among these are the fiscal crisis of the state (O'Connor, 1973); competing priorities such as prisons and law enforcement and tax subsidies to investors, the segregation of student populations into a hierarchy of schools through residential zoning and tracking, etc. The upshot is that political blocs asserting the demand for educational opportunity are an increasingly prominent form of political class struggle. The pattern is already familiar, as racialized battles over access to educational opportunities have become in recent decades a central axis of political conflict. Access to educational resources is a common agenda for any organization that would represent contingent workers, including adjunct faculty. Adjunct faculty have a special relationship, however, not only to their own occupational group but to that (or those) of the students they attempt to serve: not only the traditional college student fresh out of high school, but also employed adults in need of continuing education and the organizations which seek to represent them. Because their work places them on the boundaries between the world of work and education, adjunct faculty are particularly well-equipped to help other labor organizations champion educational opportunity for their own members, and in so doing to mobilize political support and other resources to sustain and improve adjunct faculty's own employment. It is interesting to speculate on the possible future status of this workforce, given what we know about organizational trends. The informational age is likely to spawn radically new ways of organizing education. On the one hand, the university model of education as a process that occurs prior to work and adult life--implicitly, a model of learning divorced from practice--is visibly eroding in favor of continuing education. On the other hand, organizational flexibility, inter-organizational networks, and the increasing centrality of knowledge in production may enhance the leverage of boundary-spanning positions associated with educational and informational functions. Even as knowledge production becomes more central, then, the traditional university form may become more peripheral. And even as more and more academic functions are relegated to marginalized or contingent faculty, some segments of that peripheral faculty--particularly, those solidly linked to organizations, occupational groups or other constituencies outside the academy--may become more central. We can be certain that the coming century will see new permutations on the university form. Several different kinds of university are likely to emerge from today's fragmenting form, each closely wedded to some piece of a social formation in which knowledge production has assumed central importance. Will there remain havens for scholarship, and if so, who will be admitted? What will be the shape and character of the educational hierarchy in this new information-centered order? What new kinds of "educational class struggle" will it spawn? Are current social movements for equity and opportunity in education harbingers of this future? Revaluing Education Despite the emphasis on economic demands central to conventional models of labor organization, the social movements which build and change labor and professional organization are typically infused with more complex and expressive cultures of solidarity (Fantasia, 1988). The shared sentiments, discourses, constructions of justice and injustice and collective identities which appear in these movements are beyond the scope of this analysis. I seek to show elsewhere, though, that they refute the too-simple contrast which some scholars draw between labor movements and new identity-oriented social movements. Both grassroots feminism and racialized collective identities, for example, help to animate some of the strongest contemporary labor movements in the U.S. Particularly relevant to the labor movement in education, however, are protests which can be observed in recent mobilizations by a wide variety of occupational groups, against the devaluation of the worth, dignity or status of their work (Johnston, 1994). But the devaluation of educational work has a very particular quality. According to its own rules, the educational system assigns people to positions in a steep hierarchy of intellectual ability and achievement, based on individual characteristics. This ranking appears not only within classrooms and in academic tracking systems but also between different levels of educational institution and among the faculty who work in them. For most, the experience of this inequality is intensely personal, identity-shaping, and contradictory: both above and below others in the status order, we are both superior and inferior, smarter and stupider. As long as the possibility remains for advancement to the next step in the hierarchy, we may cling to hopes for individual mobility out of the ranks of our peers; unless we are among the minuscule group who "make it" to tenure in major research universities and there remain productive, however, we always eventually fail or "drop out" en route to our eventual destination in the hierarchy of educational value. There is always a better school, a higher degree, a more productive colleague, and we are likely to internalize blame for the almost inevitable educational failure. Hierarchies of academic achievement and professional competence are perhaps unavoidable in an educational order. Our actual prospects depend, however, less on academic acheivement and professional competence than on the structure of opportunities for educational advancement: the shape of the hierarchy. The arbitrary quality of the educational status system is particularly evident to adjunct faculty members working alongside tenured faculty members hired decades ago, when the supply of tenure-track positions more closely matched the supply of Ph.D's. Not infrequently, the attainments of adjunct faculty members compare favorably to those of the tenured faculty. Adjunct and temporary faculty are also likely to be concentrated in devalued functions: teaching remedial courses, introductory courses, basic composition, etc.; teaching anything, moreover, to predominately working-class and/or predominately minority students. In these circumstances, a simple affirmation of the worth of systematically devalued scholarship and teaching can be powerful, even inspirational. It can draw, moreover, on educational systems' own meritocratic logic, by challenging arbitrary barriers to intellectual recognition based on the availability of positions--the product of a political calculus--rather than the quality of achievement. If the devalued status of the adjunct faculty member is to serve as a resource for organizing this workforce, it will be necessary to develop discourses which explain the status of this group or teaching function as a product not of innate characteristics but rather of structural biases, and to frame demands for improved wages, resources and status as a protest against those biases. There is no requirement in the logic of education that academic achievement should be so sharply graded in so steep and high a pyramid. The narrow space at the top may well be, in part, a form of social closure, through which those with control over educational practices limit others' access to their own elite perch to protect or inflate its value. But as prospects for promotion become less and less a function of merit than of the supply of funding for academic positions, the organizational structure of the university itself becomes an affront to standards of scholarly achievement and academic freedom. Straining against the archaic structure of the university, implicit in an emergent era of increased education (and more unemployment), it is possible to envision a new academic community with open doors. Part-time teaching might be only one facet of a scholarly life built around reflexive practical experience in a given field, continued study and writing, supplemented by sabbaticals, to support a vast harvest of scholars. To some extent, the labor movement in education already challenges barriers implicit in the old university by demanding the expansion of part-time tenure options. To the extent that it does so more explicitly--that it seeks to throw open the door to unlimited advancement--it can hope to harness the energy and loyalty of the devalued academic. To the extent that it does this while bridging the divisions in educational labor, securing professional resources for contingent faculty, affirming the integration of knowledge and practice, and championing a broad societal aspiration for educational opportunity, it may help to prefigure a university of the future. References: AAUP (American Association of University Professors). 1993. "Report of Committee G on Part-time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments," Academe 79, pp. 39-46. Abel, Emily K. 1984. Terminal Degrees: the Job Crisis in Higher Education. New York, NY: Praeger. Abraham, Samer Y. et al, 1994. "1992-93 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty Field Test Report" National Center for Educational Statistics Technical Report (NCES No. 93-390). Burns, Margie. "Women, Part-Time Faculty, and Illusion," Thought and Action VIII (1): 13-28. Carnoy, Martin and Henry M. Levin, 1985. Schooling and Work in the Democratic State Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dougherty, Kevin J. 1994. The Contradictory College: The Conflicting Origins, Impact, and Futures of the Community College. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. El-Khawas, Elaine. 1993. Campus Trends 1993, American Council on Higher Education Report (83) Washington D.C. Fantasia, Rick. 1988. Cultures of Solidarity: consciousness, action, and contemporary American workers. Berkeley: University of California Press. Freeman, Richard B. 1986. "Unionism Comes to the Public Secotr." Journal of Economic Literature 24 (1) 41-86. Gappa, Judith and David Leslie, 1993. The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-Timers in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garabino, Joseph w. 1986. "Faculty Collective Bargaining: A Status Report,", in Unions in Transition: Entering the Second Century, edited by Seymour Martin Lipset, pp. 241-264. San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press. Harrison, Bennett. 1994. Lean and Mean: the Changing Landscape of Power in the Age of Flexibility. New York: Basic Books. Hyman, Richard and Wolfgang Streek, 1988. New Technology and Industrial Relations. London: Basil Blackwell. Johnston, Paul. 1994. Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University ILR Press. --1995. "Together Again? Prospects for Connecting the New Politics of Production and Place through Community-based Unionisms" paper presented at Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, Washington D.C. Kern, Horst and Charles Sabel, 1992. "Trade Unions and Decentralized Production: a Sketch of Strategic Problems in the German Labour Movement," in The Future of Labour Movements, edited by Marino Regini (pp. 217-49), Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Marshall, F. Ray and Marc Tucker, 1992. Thinking for a Living: Work, Skills, and the Future of the American Economy New York: Basic Books. National Center for Educatinal Statistics. 1989. "Faculty in Higher Education Institutions," 1988 (NCES No. 90-365). NEA (National Education Association). 1988. "Report and Recommendations on Part-Time, Temporary, and nontenure track faculty appointments," Washington, DC: National Education Association. O'Connor, James. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State NY: St. Marin's Press. Perrow, Charles. 1995. Untitled manuscript from Society of Organizations project, New Haven, CT: Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Piore, M.J. and Sabel, C.F., 1984. The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity, New York, Basic Books. Robinson, Perry. 1994. Part-Time Faculty Issues Washington, DC: AFT Publications. Schiller, Dan. 1981. Telematics and Government. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Thompson, Karen. 1992. "Piecework to Parity: Part-Timers in Action," Thought and Action VIII (2): 29-37. --"Recognizing Mutual Interests," Academe, 78 (6)22-26. Troy, Leo. 1984. "The Convergence of Public and Private Industrial Relations Systems in the United States." Government Union Review 5 (3): 37-52. Wellington, Harry H., and Ralph K. Winter, Jr. 1971. The Unions and the Cities. Washington D.C.; Brookings Institution. Zimbler, Linda. 1994. "Faculty and Instructional Staff: Who Are They and What Do They Do?" National Center for Educational Statistics Survey Report (NCES No. 94-346). Zuboff, Shoshanna (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power Basic Books. > >Paul Johnston wrote: >> >> Folk stimulated by the current surge of graduate student militancy may be >> interested in a strangely & clumsy essay called "The New Academic Underclass >> Confronts the Lean, Mean University in the Informational Age" by yours >> truly, Yale 1995. Send me a note & I'll post you a copy. >> >> Paul Johnston >> johnston@cruzio.com >-- >Regards, >Mark Jones > > >.- > > From culturex@vcn.bc.ca Sun May 25 13:43:13 1997 by vcn.bc.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA04273; Sun, 25 May 1997 12:42:25 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 12:42:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley Subject: New (Improved) Social Contract and the FIRST We the People Constitution. (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 17:27:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Franklin Wayne Poley To: CONSTITUTION@websightz.com Subject: New (Improved) Social Contract and the FIRST We the People Constitution. President Clinton has announced that "Workfare" recipients must receive at least minimum wage. So the new Social Contact in this sphere is "Do as we say and you will receive minimum wage." What of those Welfare recipients who are not on Workfare? What if they should get "uppity" and say "We are not going to do as YOU say. We are going to REINVENT WORK. We will do as WE say and it will be at least as much toward the public benefit as what YOU say we should do." so the question is, WHO SHOULD, UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION (the first "We the people" Constitution) DEFINE WORK? FWP. From weaver@MARSHALL.EDU Tue May 27 09:26:25 1997 27 May 1997 11:27:59 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 11:27:59 -0400 (EDT) From: weaver@MARSHALL.EDU To: Labor-Rap@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Can you please resend the message about the auto worker in Mexico who is imprisoned for trying to organize a union? It was sent sometime in the last four days. I lost mine while trying to print it. Many thanks. Susan Weaver Department of Sociology Marshall University From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Tue May 27 20:55:53 1997 Tue, 27 May 1997 19:52:39 -0700 (PDT) Tue, 27 May 1997 19:50:56 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 19:50:56 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Solinet conference Sender: meisenscher@igc.org Solinet has been involved in an innovative form of international organizing through their web-based conferencing system. They host moderated discussions on a variety of topics which run about a month each and bring together people with common interests from different countries. It's easy to sign up and get a password so you can participate in these things (also free). Check out their website. Below is the info on an education "seminar" they're hosting in June. (posted to United@cougar.com by Len Wilson) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an invitation to attend a special labour seminar entitled "Education and Globalization" which will be held on the Solidarity computer conferencing system (SoliNet) from June 2 to June 27. The seminar will be lead by Larry Kuehn, the Director of Research and Technology for the British Columbia Teachers' Federation. Larry has extensive experience working with teacher unions in Southern Africa and Latin America as well as North America. The online seminar will focus on how globalization is having an impact on public education around the globe. Topics for the seminar include the neo-liberal agenda for education, the role of international organizations in education (e.g., OECD, IMF, World Bank), how technologies of indicator systems and international testing influence education, and finally, strategies for challenging the neo-liberal agenda. Anyone interested in the topics is invited to join the seminar, preferably--but not necessarily--as a participant in the discussion. SoliNet is on the Web at: www.solinet.org If you have forgotten either your SoliNet username or password or both (getting old, eh?) please send me an email. (Please do not re-register... that will make a mess of our membership lists.) The conference will be called GlobalEd and will be available for joining on Monday, June 2nd. You will find instructions for joining the conference at the end of this note. I'm sure you will find this a fascinating and informative conference. Please come join us. Marc Belanger SoliNet Moderator ***************** INSTRUCTIONS FOR JOINING THE GLOBALED CONFERENCE The conference GlobalEd will be open for participation on Monday, June 2. On, or after, that date please do the following to join the conference: 1. Enter the SoliNet conferencing section. You will be in the CONFERENCE LIST section. 2. Click on JOIN CONFERENCE which you will find in the middle of the top frame. 3. Click in the little box beside the name of the conferences you want to join: GlobalEd 4. Click on JOIN at the bottom of the page. You will be told you have joined the conference. 5. Click on JOINED CONFERENCES WITH UNREAD MESSAGES in the top box. 6. Enter the conference by clicking on the name of the conference: GlobalEd. From weaver@MARSHALL.EDU Wed May 28 13:03:09 1997 28 May 1997 15:04:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 15:04:46 -0400 (EDT) From: weaver@MARSHALL.EDU Subject: Forwarded mail.... To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 11:27:59 -0400 (EDT) From: weaver@MARSHALL.EDU To: Labor Research and Action Project Can you please resend the message about the auto worker in Mexico who is imprisoned for trying to organize a union? It was sent sometime in the last four days. I lost mine while trying to print it. Many thanks. Susan Weaver Department of Sociology Marshall University From LeoCasey@aol.com Wed May 28 15:06:58 1997 From: LeoCasey@aol.com by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) Wed, 28 May 1997 17:06:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 17:06:55 -0400 (EDT) To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Solinet conference Marc -- Could you please remind me of my password? Leo Casey LeoCasey@AOL.COM From sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu Wed May 28 18:37:50 1997 Wed, 28 May 1997 19:37:02 -0500 (CDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 19:37:02 -0500 (CDT) To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu (Kim Scipes) Subject: A real Gulf War story Folks--This just came over my veterans network, and I thought it deserves the widest attention. And remember, there is no mention here of depleted uranium, which was used in the Gulf, and which almost NOBODY is talking about, but is real. Please feel free to distribute as widely as possible. Kim >Redistributed for noncommercial, educational purposes only. > >Date: Tue, 27 May 97 16:44:06 CDT >From: Mark Graffis >Subject: GULF: THE WAR THAT WOULD NOT DIE > >Posted to the web: Mon May 26 15:23:31 EDT 1997 > >By William Thomas > >Five years after the celebrated end of the world's most toxic war, >the children of Iraq are not the only losers. What was first >dismissed by the head of a special U.S. Task Force on Gulf war >Health as a disorder caused by "lack of recreation" or "alcohol >deprivation" has turned out to be an undiagnosable contagion >striking Gulf war veterans, their spouses and offspring. > >Coalition governments - including the U.S., Britain, Germany and the >Netherlands - who sold Saddam Hussein the cell cultures and >technology for what the CIA later termed one of the world's "biggest >and most aggressive" chemical-biological warfare production lines >are now reaping the whirlwind. Washington admits that some 84,000 >Desert Storm veterans are ill with a constellation of symptoms, >including memory loss, rashes, insomnia, night sweats, weight gain, >rashes, sensitivity to light, bleeding gums and rectums, chronic >coughs, shortness of breath, hair loss, dizziness and blackouts. > >But the Washington-based Gulf war Veterans Association insists that >possibly twice that number of vets are "sick, disabled, or dying." >These young men and women were in top physical condition before >going to the Gulf. Today many are exhausted after climbing stairs on >errands whose purpose they cannot remember. > >Casualties are mounting from a war that has not ended. In 1995, the >U.S. Veterans Administration raised the official number of 148 US >combat deaths to 6,526 deceased Persian Gulf war veterans, who have >died since returning home of illnesses contracted in the Gulf. >Studies have shown as many as three out of four spouses of sick >veterans suffer the same symptoms. LIFE magazine's shocking >photo-essay, published in November, 1995 special edition devoted to >"The Tiny Victims Of Desert Storm," cites another medical surveys >which found gross birth deformities in 65% of the infants conceived >by veterans after the war. > >Possible causes include a sickening synergy of contaminants. Soon >after the war, AP reported that coalition forces demolished four >nuclear power plants and 27 chemical warfare sites upwind of large >concentrations of friendly troops. Oil smoke from 1,100 broken and >burning oil wells - and radioactive debris from hundreds of tons of >depleted-uranium munitions - covered those same battlefields. > >Other attacks were deliberate. The Assistant Secretary of the U.S. >Dept. of Defense for Chemical and Biological Weapons admitted under >Senate examination that 14,000 chemical-warfare alarms sounded >"three-times a day" throughout the war - despite being set to >sensitivities 1,000 times higher than minimum hazardous exposure. >Just 19 days into the air war, the French Ministry of Defense >detected chemical fallout - "probably neurotoxins" - in small >quantities throughout the war zone. A Czech decontamination unit >reported Sarin and mustard gas among US positions in Saudi Arabia. > >U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf feared sending his troops into a >"chemical killing sack". But the Iraqi Chemical Corps field manual >for Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Operations stresses the use of >chemical or biological agents to swamp an enemy's hospitals, >logistics and resolve with non-fatal casualties rather than deaths. > >>From January 17, 1991 until late the following month, more than 20 >confirmed Sarin and mustard gas attacks on US positions were logged >by Fox "sniffer" vehicles and litmus-wielding sergeants. Eight >American soldiers were decorated for detecting "chemical agent >contamination" - or for chemically-induced wounds. > >Thousands of eyewitness accounts, poisoned sheep and camels, and an >American field hospital overflowing with sick marines leave no doubt >that Saddam's forces launched the same dry chemical-tipped missiles >used in some 200 attacks against Kurds and Iranians. UN inspectors >who entered Iraq after the war found 12,000 artillery shells, >rockets and bombs loaded with lethal nerve agents; 28 SCUDs were >still tipped with Sarin. > >Some sick soldiers never saw an active battlefield. But all GWS >sufferers were ordered to take Pyridostigmine Bromide three-times a >day. A U.S. Army safety bulletin issued in August, 1991 describes >Pyridostigmine Bromide as "an unnecessary health and safety hazard >to soldiers, their family members (especially children), and the >general public." > >Many who took the small white tablets became sick immediately with >this experimental drug that amplified the effects of Sarin. Though >some 28,000 U.S. servicewomen's birth control pills and reproductive >cycles made them especially vulnerable to PB, no one was briefed on >Pyridostigmine Bromide's known side-effects - which had crash-landed >carefully screened U.S. Air Force test subjects into hospitals with >impaired breathing, vision, stamina and short-term memory. > >The potential liability of the U.S., British, Canadian, New Zealand >and Australian governments who issued experimental PB without their >troops' informed consent could make the $180 million awarded to >Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange look like parking-meter >change. PB has been found by University of Mississippi researchers >to be made many times more toxic by the stress, DEET insect >repellent, lindane and caffeine familiar to desert-dwelling GI's. >Earlier this year, researchers at university hospitals in Texas and >Florida identified brain and nerve damage resulting from wartime >exposures to human-worn flea collars, DEET, and PB - as well as >exposure to chemical nerve agents. > >The viral theory of GWS transmission has been bolstered by recent >California findings of a germ warfare mycotoxin called mycoplasma >incognitas. This mycoplasma attacks immune systems already >debilitated by stress or repeated exposure to such toxins as oil >smoke or other neural inhibitors, including PB. > >The implications of bio-war in the Gulf could put a severe dent in >the popularity of future wars. "I'm beyond anger," says the father >of one Gulf biowar casualty. "Any idiot who wishes to play genetic >godhood and inflicts the kind of suffering, now being inflicted upon >my son, his wife and children, should be neutered, stoned in public, >beaten to death and their carcass thrown to the wolves or wild >dogs." > >The cover-up is beginning to crack. In May, 1997, The U.S. Army >Times quoted a researcher who had found that "considerable evidence >suggests that the Iraqi forces engaged in sporadic, uncoordinated >chemical warfare during the Gulf War." On May 15, Channel Four >television's Deborah Davies told Britons: "Dispatches expose a >cover-up and unveils new evidence that - contrary to six years of >official denials - Iraq did hit allied troops with chemical weapons >and nerve gas during Operation Desert Storm. It also reveals that >gas attacks were merely the first amongst several incidents in which >British and American troops were exposed to toxic chemicals." > >Even if no treatments are found to reverse their slow decline, the >biggest hope The biggest among ailing veterans is that coalition >governments will acknowledge that something happened in the Gulf to >fundamentally alter their personalities and their lives. If they are >finally heard, a dirty, secret, nearly forgotten war will become the >burial ground instead of a dress rehearsal for the next germ warfare >contest which could imperil us all. > >{William Thomas served five months in the Gulf as a member of a >three-man environmental emergency response team. He filed regular >reports with the Environment News Service, and worked closely with >CNN. His dispatches appeared in numerous Canadian daily newspapers. >He later prepared the first post-war environmental impact assessment >for Kuwait's Royal Family. His 30-minute documentary, "Eco War" won >Best Documentary Short at the 1992 U.S. Environmental Film Festival. > >Thomas's writing and photography have appeared in more than 55 >publications in eight countries, with translations into French, >Dutch and Japanese. He currently lives and works in the Gulf Islands >of British Columbia.} > >The Environment News Service is exclusively hosted by >the EnviroLink Network. Copyright 1997 ENS, Inc. > From aanz@sirius.com Wed May 28 19:54:14 1997 for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 18:54:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 18:52:46 -0700 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: aanz@sirius.com (anzalone/starbird) Subject: Re: A real Gulf War story >A similar version of this story is covered in the most recent version of >the Nation too. fyi ellen starbird Folks--This just came over my veterans network, and I thought it deserves >the widest attention. And remember, there is no mention here of depleted >uranium, which was used in the Gulf, and which almost NOBODY is talking >about, but is real. Please feel free to distribute as widely as possible. > >Kim > >>Redistributed for noncommercial, educational purposes only. >> >>Date: Tue, 27 May 97 16:44:06 CDT >>From: Mark Graffis >>Subject: GULF: THE WAR THAT WOULD NOT DIE >> >>Posted to the web: Mon May 26 15:23:31 EDT 1997 >> >>By William Thomas >> >>Five years after the celebrated end of the world's most toxic war, >>the children of Iraq are not the only losers. What was first >>dismissed by the head of a special U.S. Task Force on Gulf war >>Health as a disorder caused by "lack of recreation" or "alcohol >>deprivation" has turned out to be an undiagnosable contagion >>striking Gulf war veterans, their spouses and offspring. >> >>Coalition governments - including the U.S., Britain, Germany and the >>Netherlands - who sold Saddam Hussein the cell cultures and >>technology for what the CIA later termed one of the world's "biggest >>and most aggressive" chemical-biological warfare production lines >>are now reaping the whirlwind. Washington admits that some 84,000 >>Desert Storm veterans are ill with a constellation of symptoms, >>including memory loss, rashes, insomnia, night sweats, weight gain, >>rashes, sensitivity to light, bleeding gums and rectums, chronic >>coughs, shortness of breath, hair loss, dizziness and blackouts. >> >>But the Washington-based Gulf war Veterans Association insists that >>possibly twice that number of vets are "sick, disabled, or dying." >>These young men and women were in top physical condition before >>going to the Gulf. Today many are exhausted after climbing stairs on >>errands whose purpose they cannot remember. >> >>Casualties are mounting from a war that has not ended. In 1995, the >>U.S. Veterans Administration raised the official number of 148 US >>combat deaths to 6,526 deceased Persian Gulf war veterans, who have >>died since returning home of illnesses contracted in the Gulf. >>Studies have shown as many as three out of four spouses of sick >>veterans suffer the same symptoms. LIFE magazine's shocking >>photo-essay, published in November, 1995 special edition devoted to >>"The Tiny Victims Of Desert Storm," cites another medical surveys >>which found gross birth deformities in 65% of the infants conceived >>by veterans after the war. >> >>Possible causes include a sickening synergy of contaminants. Soon >>after the war, AP reported that coalition forces demolished four >>nuclear power plants and 27 chemical warfare sites upwind of large >>concentrations of friendly troops. Oil smoke from 1,100 broken and >>burning oil wells - and radioactive debris from hundreds of tons of >>depleted-uranium munitions - covered those same battlefields. >> >>Other attacks were deliberate. The Assistant Secretary of the U.S. >>Dept. of Defense for Chemical and Biological Weapons admitted under >>Senate examination that 14,000 chemical-warfare alarms sounded >>"three-times a day" throughout the war - despite being set to >>sensitivities 1,000 times higher than minimum hazardous exposure. >>Just 19 days into the air war, the French Ministry of Defense >>detected chemical fallout - "probably neurotoxins" - in small >>quantities throughout the war zone. A Czech decontamination unit >>reported Sarin and mustard gas among US positions in Saudi Arabia. >> >>U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf feared sending his troops into a >>"chemical killing sack". But the Iraqi Chemical Corps field manual >>for Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Operations stresses the use of >>chemical or biological agents to swamp an enemy's hospitals, >>logistics and resolve with non-fatal casualties rather than deaths. >> >>>From January 17, 1991 until late the following month, more than 20 >>confirmed Sarin and mustard gas attacks on US positions were logged >>by Fox "sniffer" vehicles and litmus-wielding sergeants. Eight >>American soldiers were decorated for detecting "chemical agent >>contamination" - or for chemically-induced wounds. >> >>Thousands of eyewitness accounts, poisoned sheep and camels, and an >>American field hospital overflowing with sick marines leave no doubt >>that Saddam's forces launched the same dry chemical-tipped missiles >>used in some 200 attacks against Kurds and Iranians. UN inspectors >>who entered Iraq after the war found 12,000 artillery shells, >>rockets and bombs loaded with lethal nerve agents; 28 SCUDs were >>still tipped with Sarin. >> >>Some sick soldiers never saw an active battlefield. But all GWS >>sufferers were ordered to take Pyridostigmine Bromide three-times a >>day. A U.S. Army safety bulletin issued in August, 1991 describes >>Pyridostigmine Bromide as "an unnecessary health and safety hazard >>to soldiers, their family members (especially children), and the >>general public." >> >>Many who took the small white tablets became sick immediately with >>this experimental drug that amplified the effects of Sarin. Though >>some 28,000 U.S. servicewomen's birth control pills and reproductive >>cycles made them especially vulnerable to PB, no one was briefed on >>Pyridostigmine Bromide's known side-effects - which had crash-landed >>carefully screened U.S. Air Force test subjects into hospitals with >>impaired breathing, vision, stamina and short-term memory. >> >>The potential liability of the U.S., British, Canadian, New Zealand >>and Australian governments who issued experimental PB without their >>troops' informed consent could make the $180 million awarded to >>Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange look like parking-meter >>change. PB has been found by University of Mississippi researchers >>to be made many times more toxic by the stress, DEET insect >>repellent, lindane and caffeine familiar to desert-dwelling GI's. >>Earlier this year, researchers at university hospitals in Texas and >>Florida identified brain and nerve damage resulting from wartime >>exposures to human-worn flea collars, DEET, and PB - as well as >>exposure to chemical nerve agents. >> >>The viral theory of GWS transmission has been bolstered by recent >>California findings of a germ warfare mycotoxin called mycoplasma >>incognitas. This mycoplasma attacks immune systems already >>debilitated by stress or repeated exposure to such toxins as oil >>smoke or other neural inhibitors, including PB. >> >>The implications of bio-war in the Gulf could put a severe dent in >>the popularity of future wars. "I'm beyond anger," says the father >>of one Gulf biowar casualty. "Any idiot who wishes to play genetic >>godhood and inflicts the kind of suffering, now being inflicted upon >>my son, his wife and children, should be neutered, stoned in public, >>beaten to death and their carcass thrown to the wolves or wild >>dogs." >> >>The cover-up is beginning to crack. In May, 1997, The U.S. Army >>Times quoted a researcher who had found that "considerable evidence >>suggests that the Iraqi forces engaged in sporadic, uncoordinated >>chemical warfare during the Gulf War." On May 15, Channel Four >>television's Deborah Davies told Britons: "Dispatches expose a >>cover-up and unveils new evidence that - contrary to six years of >>official denials - Iraq did hit allied troops with chemical weapons >>and nerve gas during Operation Desert Storm. It also reveals that >>gas attacks were merely the first amongst several incidents in which >>British and American troops were exposed to toxic chemicals." >> >>Even if no treatments are found to reverse their slow decline, the >>biggest hope The biggest among ailing veterans is that coalition >>governments will acknowledge that something happened in the Gulf to >>fundamentally alter their personalities and their lives. If they are >>finally heard, a dirty, secret, nearly forgotten war will become the >>burial ground instead of a dress rehearsal for the next germ warfare >>contest which could imperil us all. >> >>{William Thomas served five months in the Gulf as a member of a >>three-man environmental emergency response team. He filed regular >>reports with the Environment News Service, and worked closely with >>CNN. His dispatches appeared in numerous Canadian daily newspapers. >>He later prepared the first post-war environmental impact assessment >>for Kuwait's Royal Family. His 30-minute documentary, "Eco War" won >>Best Documentary Short at the 1992 U.S. Environmental Film Festival. >> >>Thomas's writing and photography have appeared in more than 55 >>publications in eight countries, with translations into French, >>Dutch and Japanese. He currently lives and works in the Gulf Islands >>of British Columbia.} >> >>The Environment News Service is exclusively hosted by >>the EnviroLink Network. Copyright 1997 ENS, Inc. >> From jschaffner@igc.apc.org Wed May 28 20:53:41 1997 for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 19:53:19 -0700 (PDT) for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 19:52:25 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 19:52:25 -0700 (PDT) To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu From: Schaffner Subject: International Workers Meeting Confronting Neoliberalism Sender: jschaffner@igc.org International Workers Meeting Confronting Neoliberalism and the Global Economy >Havana, Cuba -- August 6 to 8, 1997 > >I think the following information would be welcome by participants on this list. If you are not interested, you know were your delete key is. > >Following are the International Call to the Conference; letter from the Labor Task Force of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) urging U.S. trade union and labor participation; and the basic application information from the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange. >===================================================================== > >1. International Workers Meeting Confronting Neoliberalism and the Global Economy >Havana, Cuba -- August 6 to 8, 1997 > >On May 2nd, 1996 of last year an *International Union Meeting on Workers Unity and Solidarity in the XXI Century* was held in Havana, Cuba. > >Union representatives from more than 49 countries of the 5 continents participated. The delegates at the meeting agreed to organize and promote an International meeting of workers to confront Neo-Liberalism and the Global Economy. The delegates also proposed to invite International unions and social organizations to attend, on the basis of broadening participation. > >The event will be held August 6, 7 and 8, 1997 in Havana, Cuba and will be hosted by the Confederation of Cuban Workers, (CTC). > >1. Points of discussion - Proposals from workers to confront: >-- Privatization >-- Unemployment and sub-employment >-- Lowering of wages >-- Cuts in Social Security and deterioration of health care services and education >-- Racist attacks on Immigrants >-- World uni-polarization >-- Unfair wealth distribution >-- Plans to weaken or eliminate unions >-- Loss of countries sovereignty and independence >-- Sexual discrimination and child labor >-- Other specific aspects from each country or region > >====================================================================== >2. Dear friend, >This summer the Confederation of Cuban Workers will be hosting an International Workers Meeting on Confronting Neoliberalism and the Global Economy, August 6-8. Delegations from over 50 countries are expected to attend. The delegation from this country is being organized through the US/Cuba Labor Exchange. > >The Committees of Correspondence Labor Task Force would like to urge you to attend and to help build participation among fellow trade unionists for this important conference. > >The topics that will be discussed at the Havana conference are the following: >Privatization; Unemployment; Lowering of wages; Cuts in social security and deterioration of health care services and education; Racist attacks on immigrants; World uni-polarization; Unfair wealth distribution; Plans to weaken or eliminate unions; Loss of countries' sovereignty and independence; Sexual discrimination and child labor. > >The impetus for the conference came last year during the 17th Congress of the Confederation of Cuban Workers, during which there were fascinating exchanges with (among others) the Brazilian, Columbian and French trade unionists and leaders on all sorts of questions ranging from trade union rights to strategies on developing political muscle and restraining capital. > >Aside from the importance of grappling with the neo-liberal agenda globally, this conference will provide opportunities to make contract with leading progressive trade unionists throughout the world, as well as provide opportunities to visit Cuba's hospitals, schools, child-care centers, factories, etc. And I would encourage everyone who would like a change of pace to go and take a vacation in a country where workers are in power. > >In preparation for the conference, two meetings have been organized, one on the west coast held earlier this month, and a second which was scheduled for May 24th on the east coast in New York City. > >If you are interested in attending the Havana conference and/or are interested in participating in efforts to build for the conference, please contact the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange (see enclosed material). If you are responding to this letter we would appreciate knowing if you are interested in attending. > >In unity and struggle, >Carol Lambiase (for the CoC Labor Task Force) >11 John Street, Room 506 >New York, NY 10038 >phone: (212) 233-7151; fax: (212) 233-7063 >email: cofc@igc.apc.org >====================================================================== > >3. The U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange would like to invite you to attend a labor seminar, which will be held in Havana, Cuba from August 2nd to 9th, 1997. The seminar will be fully hosted by the CTC and the U.S. delegation will stay at the Lazaro Pena school of the CTC. > >As part of the one week labor seminar you will attend the *International Workers Meeting Confronting Neo-Liberalism and Global Economy*. You will also visit hospitals, schools, child-care centers, factories, etc. You will meet with representatives from different unions, Cuban and international. > >As a guest of the CTC you will learn about the role labor plays in Cuban life as well as the new challenges workers face as joint ventures appear in Cuba and the negative effects of the Helms-Burton Bill by the U.S. government. > >Some free time will also be available to you. Delegates who attend the 2 week seminar will have the opportunity to attend the World Youth Festival. > >1 week Cuba labor seminar -- Saturday, Aug. 2 to Saturday, Aug. 9, 1997. >Frm Cancun, Mexico: $650.00 > >2 week Cuba labor seminar (including World Youth Festival) -- Friday, July 25 to Saturday, Aug. 09, 1997. From Cancun, Mexico: $950.00 > >If you are interest in attending any of the upcoming seminars and need an applications of if you have any questions or need more information, please fill out the attached coupon or contact us at: > >U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange >P.O. Box 39188; >Redford, MI 48239 >phone: (313) 561-8330; fax: (313) 836-3752 > >___ Please send me information and an application. >___ My union would like to endorse the delegation to the *International Workers meeting Confronting Neo-Liberalism and the Global Economy* >___ I have enclosed a donation of $ _____ > >Name_________________________________________________________________________ > >Address_______________________________________________________________________ > >City______________________________State_____________Zip________________________ > >Phone_______________Union Affiliation______________________Position_______________ > > >Specific information from the application for the Cuba Labor Seminar and the scholarship program at the Lazaro Pena school of the CTC. > >Read the following carefully before completing your application and be sure you understand your responsibilities should you be selected to participate in the Cuba Labor Seminar. Please initial this sheet at the end after you read it; return the original with your application and keep a copy for your information. > >The cost of the 7 day Cuba Labor Exchange scholarship is $650. This includes transportation and expenses related to the travel, round-trip from Cancun, Mexico, 2 meals per day, room and board at the Lazaro Pena school of the CTC (2 people per room), the program of union activities, translation and transportation to different labor activities. > >A completed application includes the following: >the original application, with all questions answered; 1 passport size photo attached to the application; $100 deposit made payable to the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange; a copy of your passport; an initialed copy of this Basic Information Sheet, indicating you have read and understood it. All information provided on your application is kept confidential. > >Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents with documentation. You must possess a valid passport by July, 1997 or you can not go with the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange. Apply now to avoid delays. > >Please read the attached Travel Advisory (which will be sent with the actual application) which indicates the categories legally permitted to travel to Cuba. Participants in this program must return a signed copy of the Travel Advisory indicating under which category you will be traveling. Persons checking category 2 (*news gathers*) require a letter of assignment from an editor or publisher of any publication. Most other eligible participants will be traveling for the purpose of professional research (Category 3). > >The U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange reserves the right to limit participation due to reasons of space, group composition and comportment. We are providing people in the U.S. the opportunity to participate in the Cuba Labor Seminar. However, since its is a *group experience*, if a given individuals participation has a significantly negative affect on other participants, the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange reserves the right to deny participation to the person. > >_____________________________________ _______________ _____________ >print name initials date > >====================================================================== > From aanz@sirius.com Wed May 28 21:02:08 1997 for ; Wed, 28 May 1997 20:01:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 20:00:41 -0700 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu From: aanz@sirius.com (anzalone/starbird) Subject: Re: Of Possible help to Union Activists >Your address yields no DNS entry on the Netscape, could you be mistaken? >ellen starbird Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 01:19:08 -0700 >From: esommer@direct.ca (eric steven sommer) > >Subject: Stewards Planetary House News. >Message-ID: <199705251027.DAA06014@feta.direct.ca> > >Hi there, > >A new philosophy work is in process of being posted at the Stewards >Planetary House website. Sixty chapters of `The Mind of The Steward: >Inquiry-Based Philosophy For The 21St Century' are already posted, with more >to come. This work, seven years in preperation, sets-out a highly coherent >new philosophical worldview which includes: > >1. A set of basic categories clarifying the inter-connected nature of >experience, beings, interaction, and networks. > >2. An inquiry-based theory of knowledge, rooted in experience and scientific >method, but going beyond traditional notions to make inquiry an instrument >for exploring and reconstructing all areas of life and experience in order >to promote greater being for all the beings involved. > >3. A revolutionary `law of being' called `Arta' which is also rooted in >experience, being, and interaction. > >4. A new model of human nature as a `body-mind-I' system. > >5. A new expanded conception of inquiry. > >6. An application of the aforementioned concepts and principals to `advanced >matters' such as the nature and development of synergies, organizations, and >networks. > >The URL for this work is: http:///www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphmndi.htm > > > Background > >The Stewards Planetary House is a new just-being-born movement of >working and non-working poor people who seek to become increasingly >able to work together to care for one another togther with the planet. >Our approach is highly inquiry-oriented and includes new methods of >social organization, economics, information technology, childcare, >personal development, care of the earth, and much else. > >The SPH combines the seven ways people have traditionally sought >liberation: The human potential movment, progressive social change, >religion or spirituality, ecology, feminism, progressive art, and science. > >The Stewards Planetary House is open to all poor people, wherever they may >be on the planet. People are needed to help us to begin our program of >`organizing the poor people of the world - beginning with ourselves - >to work together as Stewards to care for one another together with the world. > >The URL for our homepage, where you can read about us, and connect with us, is: >http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphhome.htm > >Be sure to check out `The Stewards Corporation: A Corporation of A New Type' >when you are at our site. It's accessable from a link in the homepage and >in `What's New?' > > > > >=================== The Stewards Planetary House ======================= > "Organizing the Planetary Underclass of working and non-working > poor people as the Stewards or caretakers of the World." > http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/sphhome.htm >=======================Personal Information ============================ > Information on the Center for Total Human development and my personal > projects and networking document: http://www.InstantWeb.com/P/Planet/ >======================================================================== > > > >Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of >Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax >610-668-2727. >email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu >http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ >"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do >with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Wed May 28 21:13:48 1997 Wed, 28 May 1997 20:12:17 -0700 (PDT) Wed, 28 May 1997 20:10:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 20:10:37 -0700 (PDT) To: labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-uclea@h-net.msu.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: FIN:STTK UNION INFO [UIS} Sender: meisenscher@igc.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UNION INFORMATION SERVICE NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE UNION MOVEMENT SEE FOOTER FOR SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS editor@uis.poptel.org.uk PROVIDED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH POPTEL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In Finland, as in the other Nordic countries the rate of unionisation rank among the highest in Europe. Around 1.6 million of the over 2 million working population are members of a trade union organisation. In addition to this, non-active members, such as old-age pensioners and students, account for 17 per cent of the total membership. There is a slightly higher percentage of women members than men. Finnish employees are organised into three national confederations: Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees STTK The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK and The Confederation of Unions for Academic Professionals in Finland AKAVA STTK is the largest salaried employee confederation in Finland STTK is the largest salaried employee confederation in Finland, with a total membership of 650 000 - women represent is about 67 per cent. The members of the 26 affiliated unions are employed as salaried employees in industry, the private service sector, the municipal sector including health, care and in the state sector. The rate of unionisation has continuously been increasing since the 1960s beeing now over 80 per cent. Working towards a better future The Finnish industrial relations and collective bargaining systems are based on a high level of unionisation, tripartite agreements and national collective agreements. Tripartite negotiations One might say that the employment legislation forms the corner stones, collective agreements form the walls and individual employment contracts form the roof that make up the conditions of employment for our individual members. In practice, the first two are the most important. Employment legislation, as well as social security issues concerning employees, are prepared in tripartite committees, working groups, or through consultation procedures held between the representatives of the government, employees and the employers. The Finnish national confederations, STTK, SAK and AKAVA, represent their affiliated unions and individual members in these proceedings. Tripartite negotiations aim at establishing consensus. The incomes policy agreements drawn up since the late 1960s, between the central organisations of both the employees and employers and often with the participation of the government as the third party, are a prime example of this consensus-driven tripartite policy. Those agreements covered various issues besides wages and salaries, such as improvements in working life, shorter working hours and social security reforms: unemployment benefits, employment pensions and taxation. Finnish membership of the European Union brings new challenges for STTK and its affiliated unions. A tripartite consultation framework has been established to prepare Finland's EU- policy. STTK wants to strengthen the social dimension of the European Union. Thus, tripartite negotiations must be enhanced within the institutional frameworks of the European Union. STTK's policies An almost equal proportion of women and men work in Finland. Nearly 90 per cent of working women are in full-time employment. Equality between men and women is a natural part of all the work carried out in STTK; we continuously strive towards a policy of equal pay for work of equal value, by working for a fairer wage and salary system and by having an influence on job evaluation. The most important aims regarding STTK's labour market policy are to influence the state's economic policy, to one of supporting employment; the introduction of active measures in unemployment, such as vocational training and the use of the EU's structural funds; studies and experiments with the new models of sharing working-time. STTK's position regarding the education policy lies in good educational services forming an integral part of the wel-fare society. Adult education must improve the possibilities of individuals to acquire the qualifications that are needed in the work or in a new occupation. The responsibility for this, strongly points towards the employer's personnel policy also. The recession has left many of our individual members unemployed. Therefore one of our main objectives is to work for decisions and the implementation of policies that help to create new jobs. It is also most important to protect and secure the social benefits of our unemployed members. Nordic and international co-operation The co-operation between the five Nordic countries - Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - has a long tradition. Free mobility for the people of the Nordic countries and common labour market were achieved as early as in the 1950s. The Council of Nordic Trade Unions, NFS, is the forum of co-operation between the Nordic trade unions. Finland's membership of the European Union highlights the importance of European Trade Union Confederation ETUC. European Industry Committees are especially important for our affiliated unions. STTK emphasises the co-operation with trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe. Finland's membership of the European Union opens new opportunities in developing co-operation, for example, within the framework of the Phare and Tacit programmes. The co-operation with trade unions in our neighbouring countries, Estonia and Russia, is particularly important. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ICFTU, together with its affiliated members forms a global platform for trade unions, for promoting and supporting trade union activities, especially when and where unions are operating under oppressive conditions. However, at the same time, the world is integrating through new technology and free capital markets, resulting in a wider gap between the poor and the rich. Therefore, more international solidarity is called for. STTK considers the work done by the ILO and other UN institutions to be essential. Co-operation by all people is the basis for success STTK negotiates agreements concerning the health and safety of workers, trade union and vocational training, the rights and obligations of employee representatives and on forms of information, consultation and co-determination. Collective agreements concerning salaries and other conditions are negotiated by STTK's affiliated unions with their respective employer organisations. There are now hundreds of collective agreements in force and most of them are national. In the private sector, there is a framework agreement as well as sectorial agreements for the salaried employees working in industry. The benefits of co-operation are seen in results STTK and its affiliated unions have pooled their research resources in order to have a clear understanding of the impact of activities, measures and decisions on the lives of employees. STTK has further intensified its research activities by affiliating itself to the Labour Institute for Economic Research. STTK further influences social development through the media by actively presenting the views of its members and affiliated unions, when influential and important issues are publicly debated. Our members come from all walks of working life The 650 000 members of our 26 affiliated unions represent the following fields: Members Health, care and social sector unions (mostly in the minicipal sector) 170 000 Industrial sector unions 134 000 Municipal Sector 95 000 State sector unions 89 000 Service sector unions 80 000 Unions in special fields 60 020 Commercial College Graduates' Union (co-operative member) 15 000 The Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- For information send e mail to editor@uis.poptel.org.uk with subject line of "Info Request" and your "e mail address "then "firstname lastname "in the body of the message A Volunteer based service provided in conjunction with Poptel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- From sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu Thu May 29 18:48:36 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 19:47:27 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:47:27 -0500 (CDT) To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu (Kim Scipes) Subject: FWD: CIA-cocaine story (1/2) Folks--Another report courtesy of my vet's network that needs to be widely shared. Kim >Relayed in two parts. > >Redistributed for noncommercial, educational purposes only. > >Part 1 of 2. >= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >Date: Thu, 22 May 97 11:19:31 CDT >From: Lisa Pease >Subject: CIA, Contras & Cocaine: Big Media Rejoices > >Published here with permission. > >The Consortium >Vol. 2, No. 13 (Issue 39) >June 2, 1997 > >CIA, Contras & Cocaine: Big Media Rejoices >By Robert Parry > >On Nov. 27, 1991, a Washington Post editorial began: "What is one to >make of the riveting assertion, made by a convicted Colombian drug >kingpin at Manuel Noriega's Florida drug trial, that the Medellin >cartel gave $10 million to the Nicaraguan contras? Carlos Lehder is >a key prosecution witness; the U.S. government cannot lightly assail >his credibility." Lehder's testimony also did not stand alone. It >matched testimony from other cartel-connected figures, including >money launderer Ramon Milian Rodriguez, that the cartel had >funnelled millions of dollars to the CIA-backed contra rebels in the >1980s. The cartel apparently was trying to ingratiate itself to >President Reagan who had hailed the contras as "freedom fighters" >and the "moral equals of our Founding Fathers." > >The alleged cartel pay-offs, in turn, were part of a larger body of >evidence that the contras and their supporters had protected drug >flights, employed known drug traffickers for supply operations and >smuggled cocaine directly into the United States to raise money. In >Iran-contra testimony, U.S. officials had acknowledged that the >contras were implicated in this drug trafficking, as were many who >worked with them: the Cuban-Americans, the Panamanian Defense Forces >and the Honduran military. > >By mid-1984, Oliver North's courier Robert Owen warned North at the >National Security Council that the "Cubans [working with the contras >are] involved in drugs." Another North aide, Col. Robert Earl, >acknowledged to Iran-contra investigators that the CIA was worried >because around the pro-contra Cuban-Americans, "there was a lot of >corruption and greed and drugs and it was a real mess." > >CIA Central American task force chief Alan Fiers testified that >"with respect to [Costa Rican-based drug trafficking by] the >Resistance [the administration's name for the contras], it is not a >couple of people. It is a lot of people." > >In Honduras, the situation was no better. One pro-contra general, >Jose Bueso-Rosa, had even planned to finance the assassination of >the country's civilian president with a cocaine shipment. After >Bueso-Rosa was caught, North intervened to gain the general more >lenient treatment because of his past help for the contras -- and >out of fear Bueso-Rosa might divulge some secrets. [For more details >on the contra-drug evidence, see the "Drug, Law Enforcement and >Foreign Policy" report by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee >on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Dec. 1988, or >Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall.] > >Testimony and documents -- disclosed during the Iran-contra scandal >-- also made clear that senior Reagan administration officials >sought to avoid embarrassing public disclosures that could undercut >the contra cause. Indeed, one of the administration's greatest >public-relations victories in the 1980s might have been steering the >big media away from the contra-drug story. > >So that November 1991 editorial in the Washington Post was an >unusual acknowledgement of the problem. The editorial even went on >to quote favorably from Sen. John Kerry's drug investigation which >concluded, in 1989, that: > >"Individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in >drug trafficking, the supply network of the contras was used by drug >trafficking organizations, and elements of the contras themselves >knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug >traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. >government had information regarding the involvement either while it >was occurring, or immediately thereafter." > >The Post editorial then offered a gentle criticism of the >performance of the mainstream media, presumably including the Post. >"The Kerry hearings didn't get the attention they deserved at the >time," the editorial acknowledged. "The Noriega trial brings this >sordid aspect of the Nicaraguan engagement to fresh public >attention." > >No Hand-wringing > >But the Post and the rest of the mainstream press went no further. >There were no critical internal reviews of why the big newspapers >had pooh-poohed one of the biggest stories of the decade. There was >no hand-wringing about how the media had failed to protect the >public from government-connected cocaine smugglers. There was no >renewed investigation of the evidence which might have implicated >figures at the highest levels of Washington power, including >possibly close aides to the sitting president, George Bush. > >Still, that failure of the big newspapers, briefly recognized by the >Post a half decade ago, is relevant again today as some of those >same papers revel in a self-criticism published by the San Jose >Mercury News for its 1996 series linking contra cocaine trafficking >to the origins of the nation's crack epidemic. Mercury News >executive editor Jerry Ceppos admitted that the series "fell short >of my standards" in the reporting and editing of a complex story >that contained many "gray areas." > >Among the weaknesses of the series, Ceppos said were instances where >the paper included "only one interpretation of complicated, >sometimes conflicting pieces of evidence," such as assertions by >Nicaraguan drug dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon about when he stopped >sharing profits with the contras and the total amount of his >assistance. "We made our best estimate of how much money was >involved, but we failed to label it as an estimate, and instead it >appeared as fact," Ceppos said. > >In essentially distancing himself from investigative reporter Gary >Webb, Ceppos stated that the series "strongly implied CIA knowledge" >that a contra-connected cocaine ring was instrumental in launching >the "crack" epidemic in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. "I feel that >we did not have proof that top CIA officials knew of the >relationship," Ceppos said. (There is no doubt, however, that senior >CIA officials knew of the broader contra-drug problem. As early as >1985, a CIA National Intelligence Estimate cited a contra faction in >Costa Rica using cocaine profits to buy a helicopter. [AP, Dec. 20, >1985]) > >While noting these shortcomings in Webb's stories, Ceppos still >maintained that "our series solidly documented disturbing >information: A drug ring associated with the contras sold large >quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles in the 1980s at the >time of the crack explosion there. Some of the drug profits from >those sales went to the contras." [Mercury News, May 11, 1997] > >Mocking Webb > >Though nuanced, Ceppos's correction created an opening for the >Washington Post and New York Times to resume a decade-long assault >on the contra-drug story, the 1991 Post editorial notwithstanding. >Both papers splashed stories about Ceppos's column on page one, >highly unusual treatment for a media self-criticism. [WP, NYT, May >13, 1997] The Post story was written by media critic Howard Kurtz, >who had used his column last fall to ridicule Gary Webb. At one >point in mocking Webb, Kurtz chortled: "Oliver Stone, check your >voice mail." [WP, Oct. 28, 1996] Switching into his objective >reporter hat for the front-page news story, Kurtz continued piling >on. Kurtz quoted Rem Reider, editor of the conservative-leaning >American Journalism Review, who called Ceppos's column a >"significant, major correction" and referred to the original >series as "another dark day for journalism." > >The Post and Times -- and the Los Angeles Times -- all hailed Ceppos >for so publicly undercutting his reporter. "I give him high marks >for openness and candor, which is something newspapers don't have a >very good record of doing," Los Angeles Times bureau chief Doyle >McManus said in Washington. "We tend to bury our corrections in >small type on page 2." [WP, May 13, 1997] > >In an editorial entitled "The Mercury News Comes Clean," the New >York Times said Ceppos's "candor and self-criticism set a high >standard for cases in which journalists make egregious errors. ... >Mr. Ceppos suggested that editors got too close to the story while >it was being written and lost the ability to detect flaws that might >have been obvious had they maintained a more skeptical distance." >[NYT, May 14, 1997] > >In truth, however, these major newspapers have taken almost no steps >themselves to ameliorate their decade-long underplaying of the >contra-cocaine story, nor to correct outright inaccuracies in their >frequent debunkings of other people's work. > >Though that 1991 Post editorial found fault with the media's >inattention to "this sordid aspect" of the contra operation, the >newspaper never explained why its reporter, Michael Isikoff, wrote >a 700-word kiss-off of Kerry's contra-drug report when it was issued >in 1989. The story, buried on page A20, presented little of the >evidence that Kerry had marshalled, focusing instead of alleged >weak-nesses in the investigation. [WP, April 14, 1989] > >But the Post was not alone in mishandling the contra cocaine story. >On Feb. 24, 1987, the New York Times published a story by Keith >Schneider, quoting "law enforcement officials" as stating that the >contra-drug allegations "have come from a small group of convicted >drug traffickers in South Florida who never mentioned contras or the >White House until the Iran-contra affair broke in November" 1986. > >The Times article failed to note that the contra-drug allegations >were first disclosed in an Associated Press dispatch (that I >co-wrote with Brian Barger) on Dec. 20, 1985, nearly a year before >the Iran-contra story broke. By April 1986, federal investigators in >Miami were examining allegations of contra gun-running and >drug-trafficking, as were Kerry's investigators. The Times even ran >a pick-up of an AP story about that investigation on April 11, 1986. > >================ >End Part 1 of 2. > From sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu Thu May 29 18:48:49 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 19:47:48 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:47:48 -0500 (CDT) To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: sscipe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu (Kim Scipes) Subject: FWD: CIA-cocaine story (2/2) >Second of two parts. > >Redistributed for noncommercial, educational purposes only. > L>Part 2 of 2. >= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > >'Shatter a Republic' > >Despite the Times' clear errors, there was no public coming-clean on >how Schneider and his editors could have bungled such an obvious >fact as when the contra-drug charges had surfaced. The story also >fit into a pattern of Schneider's biased work on the topic. He >seemed to see his job less as reporting the numerous cocaine- >trafficking allegations than as protecting the contras' image and >defending the U.S. government officials who nurtured them. > >"This story can shatter a republic," Schneider explained to In These >Times. "I think it is so damaging, the implications are so >extraordinary, that for us to run the story, it had better be based >on the most solid evidence we can amass." [ITT, Aug. 5, 1987] > >How Schneider approached that task was revealed in a Senate >deposition taken from FBI informant Wanda Palacio. She had been >regarded as a credible source until she began alleging that she had >witnessed planes owned by Southern Air Transport, a CIA-connected >airline, flying cocaine from Colombia to Miami. > >Palacio identified Wallace Sawyer, one of Oliver North's contra >flyboys, as a pilot who flew a cocaine-laden SAT plane out of >Barranquilla, Colombia, in early October 1985. Amazingly, Palacio's >spotting of Sawyer in Barranquilla was corroborated after Sawyer >died in a plane crash in Nicaragua on Oct. 5, 1986, and his >recovered flight logs showed him piloting SAT planes to and from >Barranquilla on three dates in early October 1985. > >But when Schneider and a Cuban-American associate interviewed >Palacio in Miami for the New York Times, she complained about their >bullying tactics which seemed designed to break her down, rather >than draw out her story. The Cuban man "was talking to me kind of >nasty," Palacio told Senate investigators. "I got up and left, and >this man got all pissed off, Keith Schneider." [For more details, >see Lost History: Contras, Cocaine & Other Crimes, p. 104-5] > >Having run off -- or run down -- witnesses to contra-drug >trafficking, Schneider was able to conclude that except for a few >convicted drug smugglers from Miami, the contra-drug "charges have >not been verified by any other people and have been vigorously >denied by several government agencies." [NYT, July 16, 1987] > >In another blast at the contra-drug charges four days later, >Schneider wrote "investigators, including reporters from major news >outlets, have tried without success to find proof of ... allegations >that military supplies may have been paid for with profits from drug >smuggling." [NYT, July 20, 1987] This story, too, conflicted with >the public record. As noted earlier, the original AP contra-drug >story cited a CIA report establishing that drug profits were used to >buy contra military equipment. > >Belated Admissions > >Ironically, it was not until Webb's series in 1996 that the major >newspapers acknowledged, in a back-handed way, that their dismissal >of the contra-drug allegations in the 1980s had been wrong. "Even >CIA personnel testified to Congress they knew that those covert >operations involved drug traffickers," wrote the Post's Walter >Pincus as part of a package of several stories seeking to debunk >Webb. [WP, Oct. 4, 1996] The Los Angeles Times, which published its >own anti-Webb series, also noted that "the allegation that some >elements of the CIA-sponsored contra army cooperated with drug >traffickers has been well-documented for years." [LAT, Oct. 22, >1996] > >But by effectively blacking out the issue of contra-drug trafficking >in the 1980s -- as the cocaine was flowing into the United States -- >the big newspapers made the administration's task of covering up >those crimes much easier. Kerry's chief investigator Jack Blum >complained about running into "an absolute stonewall" when seeking >relevant information from the administration. [Testimony before the >Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 23, 1996] The Washington news >media had helped the Reagan administration build that "stonewall" >and maintain it. There is also the question of the big media's >hypocrisy. While L.A. Times bureau chief McManus praised the >Mercury-News internal critique of Webb's series, his paper showed no >similar self-criticism over a 1984 front-page story that he wrote >about U.S. charges that the Nicaragua's Sandinista government was >involved in drug trafficking. That story turned out to be >essentially a propaganda hoax, but was never retracted and continues >to be cited by conservative publications to this day. > >In a joint DEA-CIA "sting" operation in 1984, drug pilot Barry Seal >flew a load of cocaine into Nicaragua. Sandinista military forces >shot down the plane, but Seal then flew in a second plane to pick up >the drug load. Seal snapped grainy photographs that purportedly >showed Nicaraguan soldiers and Colombian drug smugglers transferring >sacks of cocaine to the second plane. > >Though the DEA's investigation was still at an early stage, the >Reagan administration leaked the Sandinista allegations to the >conservative Washington Times, right before a congressional vote on >CIA military aid to the contras. When formal charges were filed in >July 1984, only one Sandinista official was named, Federico Vaughan, >a shadowy figure about whom little was known. But the New York Times >carried a statement from unidentified "senior administration >officials" claiming that U.S. surveillance had implicated top >Sandinista officials, including Interior Minister Tomas Borge and >Defense Minister Humberto Ortega. [NYT, July 19, 1984] Picking up >the theme in one televised speech, President Reagan accused >Nicaragua's rulers of "exporting drugs to poison our youth." > >A Curious Case > >But the Sandinista drug story had plenty of what Ceppos might have >called "gray areas." When I questioned Drug Enforcement >Administration officials at the time, they acknowledged that they >had no evidence against any Nicaraguan official other than Vaughan >and knew of not a single cocaine shipment that had come out of >Nicaragua since the Sandinstas seized power in 1979 -- except for >the Seal load. And that cocaine had been flown into and out of >Nicaragua by the U.S. government. > >The main reasons for this lack of cocaine smuggling through >Nicaragua should have been obvious: there were embargoes on >U.S.-Nicaraguan trade and the CIA maintained tight surveillance of >air and sea traffic out of the country. Those two realities made >Nicaragua an unappealing transit site to Colombian drug traffickers, >who preferred countries that traded heavily with the United States. >But the mainstream press showed almost no skepticism about the >illogical charges brought by the Reagan administration -- or the >scant evidence. > >In 1988, the State Department acknowledged that it had "no evidence" >of Sandinista drug connections, since the Seal case. [International >Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1988, p. 144] Then, on July >28, 1988, a House Judiciary subcommittee held hearings at which DEA >officials complained that their investigation had been compromised >to sway the outcome of the contra-aid vote. > >Even more troubling, Rep. William Hughes, D-N.J., the subcommittee >chairman, stated that when his investigators called Vaughan's number >in Nicaragua, the phone was answered at a house which had been >rented by a U.S. embassy official. The phone number had been >controlled by the U.S. embassy or some other Western embassy since >1981, the subcommittee discovered. It was never clear for whom >Vaughan was really working -- whether for the Sandinistas or U.S. >intelligence. > >Though the Judiciary subcommittee hearing might have seemed >newsworthy -- raising serious questions about a major Reagan >administration propaganda claim -- the testimony received little >notice. The Los Angeles Times ran only a brief wire-service pick-up. >[LAT, July 29, 1988] The day after the Hughes' hearings, the New >York Times and the Washington Post ran nothing at all. > >Never Saying 'Sorry' > >Not surprisingly, the Washington media's sloppy reporting on the >contra-drug issue was evident, too, in the staunchly pro-contra >Washington Times. Last summer, editor-at-large Arnaud deBorchgrave >slammed Webb for allegedly not realizing that the contras were awash >in CIA money in the early 1980s -- and thus had no motive for >dealing drugs. "Maybe Mr. Webb is too young to remember that the CIA >had no need for illicit contra funds in those days," deBorchgrave >wrote. "It was all legal. Congress had voted $100 million in >military assistance to the contras." [WT, Sept. 24, 1996] > >But it was deBorchgrave who was wrong. Congress did not approve $100 >million for the contras until the fall of 1986. Webb was writing >about cocaine shipments in the first half of the decade, when the >contras were always scrambling for money. Indeed, the contras' >financial crisis was the motive for North's decision in early 1986 >to divert money from arms sale to Iran to the contras, the reckless >act that gave the name to the scandal, Iran-contra. > >Despite this history of clearly erroneous reporting by the >Washington news media, there has been no known case of any major >news organizations engaging in an internal review of these >inaccurate stories or publicly apologizing. None of the reporters >who gummed up important facts in defense of the contras is known to >have faced discipline or public repudiation. For those reporters who >have gone with the establishment flow, there has been only easy >work, no headaches and never a demand to say "I'm sorry." > >All the mainstream press criticism, it seems, has gone the other >way. It's been concentrated on the few reporters who dared to go >against the grain and sought to expose a serious crime of state. >These reporters had the audacity to examine the substantial evidence >that the U.S. government in the 1980s failed to protect the American >people from criminal acts by the contras and their drug-connected >friends, crimes that the big newspapers have done their best to >protect, too. > >Gary Webb was just the latest journalist to take on that challenge >-- and the latest casualty. ~ > >-- >Lisa Pease > >"It is as if the final price for winning the Cold War is our >confinement to a permanent childhood where reassuring fantasies and >endless diversions protect us from the hard truth of our own recent >history." --Robert Parry, THE CONSORTIUM, 2/17/97 > >Check out my Real History Archives @ www.webcom.com/lpease >Visit the site of Probe Magazine at www.webcom.com/ctka > >================ >End Part 2 of 2. > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 29 22:09:18 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 21:04:12 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:38 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Metalworkers Federation Response to Globalization Sender: meisenscher@igc.org Journal of Commerce May 28, 1997, Metalworker union's aim: globalization PETER TIRSCHWELL SAN FRANCISCO An umbrella union organization representing 20 million metalworkers around the world is to approve today a groundbreaking blueprint to confront corporate globalization. Meeting in San Francisco to set its agenda for the next four years, the International Metalworkers Federation laid out an ambitious program to organize workers in developing countries while expanding alliances among unions in different countries. The federation encompasses more than 175 unions in 91 countries, representing workers in aerospace, steel, automotive and machine tool manufacturing. Traditionally dominated by unions in Europe, Japan and North America, the federation has seen its membership growth shift to developing nations as heavy manufacturing has migrated there. Member unions added 2 million members in developing countries since the group's last convention in 1993. Far from causing a retrenchment among old-line industrial unions, however, that shift appears to have galvanized the group into a global mobilization designed to offset the influence of multinational corporations. "Metal unions have a unique role to play because you represent workers at the giant multinationals that are driving globalization - General Electric, Boeing, Seimens-Daimler Benz, ABB, Mitsubishi and Volvo,'' John Sweeney, AFL- CIO president, told the group in a speech on Monday. Central to the group's strategy as outlined in a 40-page ""action plan'' is to organize newly hired workers of companies that already have contracts with federation unions in other countries. The plan, scheduled for approval this week, outlines a proposal to organize 2,500 workers at a General Motors plant in Thailand with the support of U.S. and German auto worker unions. Organizing those and other workers will require a substantial increase in cooperation across borders, the federation says. "Your successes or failures in making sure multinationals based in your countries operate unions worldwide will in large part determine the fate of trade unionism as we know it in the 21st century,'' Mr. Sweeney said Monday. The group's main goal over the next four years is to create a global network of metalworkers that, wherever possible, will bring international pressure on companies involved in disputes with workers. "We have to respond to this challenge by having much better trade union cooperation all over the world. It is not enough that we organize ourselves within individual countries,'' said Marcello Malentacci, the federation's general secretary. Officials said the federation's action plan underscores the extent to which globalization and related issues of worker rights, social standards, environmental protection and privatization have come to dominate the agendas of trade unions. "While four years ago the (federation) was beginning to consider the impact of globalization, this action plan is much more specific,'' said Dennis Hitchcock, associate editor of IM Journal, produced by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. ""There is an awareness now that wasn't there five years ago to the same extent.'' As an example of the type of cooperation the group is seeking, officials cited the highly publicized Bridgestone-Firestone Corp. dispute, which was settled last December after a series of walkouts and demonstrations were held in Latin America and Europe in support of the 6,000 striking workers. "It sent a message to multinationals that workers could unite across borders and impact productivity and market share,'' said Gary Hubbard, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America. The federation's blueprint that the 800 delegates were expected to approve with little opposition outlines a series of efforts including increasing funding for organizing efforts and strengthening ""company councils'' where information gets disseminated about activities at other company plants. With some figures suggesting that 30 percent of workers in developing countries are unemployed or underemployed, a key policy objective the IMF will take on involves combating unemployment, said Len Powell, an IMF spokesman. From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 29 22:29:41 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 21:07:58 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:02 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Quotations for public education Sender: meisenscher@igc.org 1:16 PM The Preamble Collaborative presents: The MAI in the Words of Framers, Proponents and Opponents --------------------------------------------------------- Glossary of Acronyms: MAI Multilateral Agreement on Investment NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement USCIB United States Council for International Business OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development On the MAI generally We are writing the constitution of a single global economy. - Renato Ruggerio, Director General of the World Trade Organization When concluded, the MAI will become the next pillar in the global system of trade, finance, and investment. - USCIB The agreement will be based on a standstill agreement and a rollback principle: the parties will not be entitled to add non-conforming measures once the agreement has been signed. They will only be entitled to liberalise in the future. - Marinus W. Sikkel, Ministry of Economics, the Netherlands and MAI working group member Unlike earlier efforts to forge a multilateral investment accord, the MAI is intended to address a comprehensive range of investment issues, have a broad geographical scope, and provide for further liberalization of investment regimes. - USCIB The MAI will . . . provide pathbreaking disciplines in areas of major interest to foreign investors.- OECD For the host country, foreign investment creates jobs and adds to the technology base. For the home country, investment has a positive effect on exports, employment, technology development, and increased financial returns. As the largest source and recipient of foreign direct investment, the U.S. stands to gain significantly from the MAI. - USCIB On the MAI and state sovereignty [OECD] Ministers also commit to . . . promote intiatives for domestic regulatory reform. . . especially when they lead to the liberalization of trade and investment flows. - OECD If we reflected upon the economic, social and ethical ramifications of the MAI, they reveal what is perhaps its most salient feature. It challenges the right of a nation to determine its own economic, social and ethical development. - Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Director, Just World Trust Western Governors support in principle an agreement that will reduce restrictions on international investment and assure investors they will be treated fairly. At the same time, we must be mindful of the impact that internationally negotiated investment or trade agreements can have on the sovereignty of states - Nebraska Governor Ben Nelson For the real future of Britain is being discussed not here, but elsewhere, and in the utmost secrecy. The columnists who have so shrilly defended the sovereignty of Parliament from the technocrats in Brussels have so far failed to devote a single column inch to the shady deliberations of the EU's bigger brother, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. - George Monbiat, UK Environmentalist On the MAI's potential economic and environmental impact [The MAI is] about opening markets, making us more competitive, making the pie bigger so that all ships can rise. - Steven Canner, Vice President for Investment Policy, USCIB A successful MAI will enable U.S. firms to compete more effectively in the global marketplace. - USCIB We will oppose any and all measures to create or even imply binding obligations for governments or business related to the environment or labor. - Abraham Katz, President of USCIB The ability of governments to use investment policy as a tool to promote social, economic and environmental goals will be forbidden under the MAI. - Tony Clarke, Polaris Institute We're concerned about its deregulation aspects on the environment. . . and there's no balance in it. Corporate rights are not balanced with corporate responsibility. - Charles Arden-Clarke, Worldwide Fund for Nature [We will] resist efforts to impose new 'voluntary' guidelines or codes of conduct on the operations of multinational corporations. - USCIB Most simply, the goal of the investment pact that emerges from review of these documents is to constrain the power of governments in host countries and in source countries to regulate investors' activities. Thus, the MAI would reduce the capacity of national and sub-national governments to limit the degree and nature of foreign investment. . . or to impose standards of behavior on investors. - Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch On the right of investors to sue governments established under NAFTA and the proposed MAI We continue to urge that MAI provide very broad remedies that would go beyond monetary remedies and that dispute settlement apply to all obligations of the agreement, including the right of establishment. - Abraham Katz, President, USCIB [T]he potential for lawsuits under this [investor-to state dispute resolution] process is far-reaching since it could be used by more than 350 million individuals and corporations throughout the NAFTA countries. - Appleton & Associates, attorneys for the Ethyl Corporation, which is suing the Canadian government under NAFTA for passing an environment regulation banning one of its products [T]here are no binding obligations on foreign investors that citizens, or even governments, can enforce through the MAI's dispute resolution rules. - Friends of the Earth On the MAI and the third world First, with respect to these concerns about the flight of U.S. capital to developing countries, this is an agreement only with rich countries. - Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Lang It is our intent and objective to extend the MAI to developing countries. - Wes Scholz, U.S. Department of State Given the current competition for capital, accession to the MAI, particularly by developing countries, will serve as a 'seal of approval.' - USCIB [The MAI is] one of the greatest threats ever to the economic development and national sovereignty of countries of the South. - Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Director, Just World Trust On the MAI and economic sanctions against human rights violators [The MAI's Most Favored Nation treatment provision] requires a host country to treat investors and their investments from one Contracting Party no differently than investors and their investments from any other Contracting Party. - Mr. Robin Morgan, International Financial Services Division, HM Treasury, United Kingdom The U.S. government should control foreign policy at the national level and not permit state and local governments to determine which economic sanctions are appropriate. - USCIB Foreign investment in non-democratic countries can help prop up dictators. For this reason, some nations, states and cities use their laws as carrots or sticks to discourage businesses from investing in dictatorial regimes. But the MAI says that foreign companies can't be punished for investment they make in other countries. This means that we have to close our eyes to how a foreign investor acts oustide of our borders, so when it comes to foreign corporations, our laws can't reflect our values. - Friends of the Earth ***** NOTES from Chantell Taylor (CTAYLOR @ CITIZEN) at 5/29/97 3:25 PM From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 29 22:34:15 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 21:07:47 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 29 May 1997 20:10:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 20:10:18 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Int'l Days of Action Against Privatization Sender: meisenscher@igc.org >/* Written 6:34 PM May 29, 1997 by dwalters in igc:labr.uk */ >/* ---------- "Int'l Days of Action Against Privat" ---------- */ >LIST OF SCHEDULED ACTITIVITES FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF PROTEST AND >STRUGGLE AGAINST PRIVATISATION AND DEREGULATION > >(MAY 30-31, 1997) - PT, Paris France, May 15, 1997 > >International Liaison Committee (ILC) Newsletter No. 12 >(May 15, 1997) In two weeks will take place the International Days of >Protest and Struggle Against Privatisation and Deregulation, and in >three weeks the International Forum to Uphold the ILO Conventions will >be held. These initiatives were all decided collectively by the >delegates attending the the Third Open World Conference last October in >Paris. We think it is important for everyone to be informed as to the >various initiatives planned to occur on this occasion. > >We are hereby transmitting the information which has been sent into the >Workers' Party (PT) in France, which the Open World Conference >designated to assume the responsibilities of secretariat for the >International Liaison Committee. > >EUROPE > >- Belgium: In accordance with the decisions taken at the workers' >conference meeting on April 12, which formed the Belgian National >Committee for the Abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty, a public rally >will be held on May 30 against privatisation and deregulation as a part >of the international days of protest. > >- France: At the time we're writing, more than 40,000 workers and youth >have signed the appeal for the abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty and >joined the National Committee for the Abrogation of the Maastricht >Treaty. Throughout France, departmental and local committees have been >formed, regrouping of activists from different trade unions, from the >French Communist Party, the Workers' Party, the Citizens Movement and >the Socialist Party. > >After a good deal of hesitation, the government finally authorised the >national march which will end with a rally in which the following >people will speak: > >Rmy Auched, CP deputy from the Pas-de-Calais; Daniel Gluckstein, >national secretary of the Workers' Party; Jean-Jacques Karman, CP >general councillor, vice-mayor of Aubervilliers; Jean-Charles >Marquiset, trade unionist; a representative of the Youth Committee for >the Abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty (Paris Region); Doreen MacNally >and Sue Mitchell of the Women From the Waterfront, Liverpool. > >The mass march and rally will be held Saturday, May 31, on the eve of >the second round of the early elections which were organised in order >to vote in a government better armed to implement the reactionary >measures of the Maastricht Treaty, the national committee has called a >national demonstration for the abrogation of this treaty, directed >against the interests and rights of workers and all the peoples of Europe. > >- Germany: A meeting of 'Social Democrats Against Maastricht' was held >on April 12 in the city of Halle. From this meeting came the proposal >made by the German comrades at the European Workers' Alliance meeting >held in Paris on April 19 and 20 to convene a European Workers' >Conference in Berlin in early 1998. Today, the noose of Maastricht is >being tightened around the necks of the Germany people and the Kohl >government is accelerating its attacks against workers' rights. It is >using the ruins in the Eastern part of the country which have been >created by privati-sation as a springboard to liquidate workers' rights >throughout Germany. In response, meetings and mass rallies for the >abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty are being held on May 30 and May 31 >throughout Germany, in: Berlin, Halle, Dessau, Magdebourg, Leipzig, >Chemnitz, Cologne, Dsseldorf, Duisbourg, Euskirschen, Mslhausen and >Frankfort. > >- Great Britain: A report back of the February 1 meeting in London was >made before 500 dockers in Liverpool at a workers' assembly. They >unanimously adopted a motion presented by the secretary of their shop >committee, Jimmy Nolan, to support and participate in the May 30 and 31 >days of protest. Because of local circumstances (several trade union >conventions being held the same weekend and a trip to a meeting of >docker trade unionists in Canada), initiatives linked to the days of >protest will be spread out over time. A public rally will be held in >Liverpool on June 14. > >On May 15 a meeting was held in which Alf Lomas, European MP for the >Labour Party, and Frank Early of the Labour News editorial board spoke. >On this occasion a North-East London Committee for the Abrogation of >the Maastricht Treaty was formed. On May 30, the editorial committee of >the monthly Labour News is hosting a public meeting for the Abrogation >of the Maastricht Treaty with the support of the Trade Unionists >Against the Single Currency Committee. > >- Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania: >The Balkans-Danube Workers' Conference will be held on May 31 in >Athens. At this point, Greek, Hungarian, Slovakian, Bulgarian, >Romanian, Serb, Croa-tian delegates have confirmed their attendance. We >have just been informed that Albanian activists have decided to support >and attend the Conference, if they succeed in obtaining a v >isa. > >On May 1, in Rovinari, the mining region in the centre of Romania, >hundreds of miners met at the call of the Committee for Social >Resistance (made up of trade union leaders from the mines, textiles, >the press and activists from the Association 'Workers' Emancipa-tion', >member of the European Workers' Alliance). The slogan written on the >banner was: "No to privatisation, withdrawal of Romanian and >all foreign troops from Albania!" > >The delegates of the social resistance committee are engaged in a >fightback against the devastating privatisation in Romania. They will >be present in Athens at the Balkans-Danube Workers' Conference. On that >occasion, on May 31, at the initiative of the Greek Workers' Alliance, >a public rally will be held in Athens for the abrogation of the >Maastricht Treaty, for the imme-diate withdrawal of foreign troops >intervening in Albania against the right of the Albanian people to >decide their own destiny. > >- Lithuania: On the 31st of May will be held a meeting in Siauliai at >the initiative of the delegation which attended the Third Open World >Conference. > >It is being prepared by a group of trade union activists and officials >of the Social Democrat Party in Lithuania (invitation was sent to >activists in Latvia and Estonia to attend the meeting). > >- Portugal: On May 31 will be held in Lisbon a meeting in order to form >a National Committee for the Abrogation of the Maastricht Treaty and >against the revision of the Constitution. The Portuguese government has >engaged in a Constitutional reform to adapt it the Maastricht criteria. >A broad movement of opposition is being built, among others among trade >union leaders and the Socialist Party parli >amentary group itself. > >- Russia: On March 29 and 30 1997 in (Russia), was held the XIIth >Con-ference of Solidarnost, trade union of the city and region of >Kalingrad. In a appeal to the workers' of ex-USSR this conference declared: > >"On May 30 and 31, workers the world over will be taking part in >international days of protest against the campaign of privatisation and >deregulation being waged by the parasitic classes across the globe. >Solidarnost associates itself to this initiative which will represent a >step forward in popular resistance to the capitalist offensive. >Solidarnost calls on all the workers in the ex-USSR, conscious of the >importance of organised self-defence, to participate in the May 30-31 >action." > >We add: a rally is being organised in Kalingrad at the initiative of >Solidarnost and a meeting will be held in Saint-Petersburg at the >initiative of the Russian Party of Communists which sent a >representative to the Third Open World Conference and published a >recent issue of its newspaper calling for the international day of >protest against privatisation and deregulation. > >- Spain: One hundred and twenty-five labour activists and leaders are >calling for a rally-debate in Madrid for the abrogation of the >Maastricht Treaty. Among them are the former general secretary of the >Workers' Commissions, Marcelino Camacho and members of the confederated >committees of the Workers' Commissions and the UGT. The May 31 meeting >also protests against the job-market reform that the government is >trying to impose on the trade unions, reform which directly derives >from the Maastricht Treaty. > >- Sweden: Two meetings are planned on May 30 and 31: one in Gteberg in >the presence of Swedish and Danish trade unionists: the other in >Stockholm, at the initiative of trade union activists from the left of >the Social-Democrat Party. > >- Switzerland: A preparatory committee for the international days of >protest on May 30 and 31 was formed on March 29 bringing together >activists from the Union of Circles for Workers' Policies (EWA), trade >union leaders from both French and German speaking Switzerland, >activists and leaders of the Socialist Party. They decided to call on >May 30 for meetings in Geneva, Vaud, Neuch tel and Bern. On May >31, they will hold a national conference against privatisation and >deregulation. > > >AFRICA > > >- Algeria: the Algerian delegation made up of activists and trade union >leaders of the UGTA trade union federation and activists of the >Workers' Party gave a report back of the Third Open World Conference. >They immediately started organising the campaign for the international >days of protest against privatisation and deregulation on May 30 and >31. And this in a situation where the demands of the International >Monetary Fund have virtually dislocated the country into a 'useful >Algeria' which is highly protected: the oil producing south, and the >rest into a 'useless Algeria', ridden with violence and barbarism. > >- Benin: On Saturday, February 22 was formed in Cotonou local branch of >the International Liaison Committee in order to prepare the >international day of protest. > >This Committee was formed by the following organizations: The National >Union of Primary School tea-chers (SYNAPRIM), National Union of >Secondary School Teachers (SYNAPES), the National Union of Central >Administration Finances (SYNTRACEF), National Union of the Benin/Niger >Railway Office (SYNTRA-OCBN), National Union of Students of >Benin-UNSEB),the Union of High School Students of CEG Djassin (UDE >D), Confede-ration of Benin Workers (CSTB), The Party for Work and >Democracy (PTD), the League for the Defence of Human Rights, the >Women's Movement for the Freedom and Progress of the People (MFLPP). > >This meeting, which took place in the Bourse du travail, decided on a >schedule to prepare a rally for May 31. > >- Burundi: A joint appeal to hold a public meeting was launched by >trade union and political leaders from Burundi and Zaire. This meeting >will be held in Bujumbura, on May 31. > >- Chad: The trade unionists who attended the Third Open World >Conference launched an appeal for a gathering on the international day >of protest. The constitutive congress of the Workers' Party was held on >April 5 and 6 and gave its support to this appeal. > >- Ivory-Coast On February 16, the Ivory Coast International Liaison >Committee met to launch an appeal to hold a public rally on May 31. >During the previous days was held the convention of the Federation of >Autonomous Ivory-Coast Unions (FESACI), whose main leaders had attended >the Third Open World Conference in Paris. > >The convention was entirely devoted to the fight back against >privatisation and deregulation. The FESACI associated itself to the >appeal for May 31. > >- Senegal: The congress of the Senegal Workers' Party which was held on >April 12 an 13 launched an appeal to all the worker and popular forces >which claim to defend democracy and the fight back against structural >adjustment plans and privatisation to join the inter-national days of >protest on May 30 and 31. Mass rallies and meetings will take place. > >- Togo: The three general secretaries of the three trade union >confederations (UNSIT, GSA and CSTT) met in order to work together to >prepare the International Day of Protest Against Privatisation and >Deregulation, especially regarding the plan to privatise the Togolese >Office of Phosphates, one of the main sources of wealth for the country >and a constitutive element of the material basis of the >Togolese State. > > >AMERICAS > > >- Argentina: One of the well-known figures of the Argentinean labour >movement of recent year, Carlos Santillan, has joined unionists of >steel workers, regional civil service employees and teachers to call >for a demonstration on May 30 in San Salvador de Jujuy. > >- Brazil: Under the aegis of the Brazilian International Liaison >Committee for a Workers' International (ILC) and the delegation of PT >deputies and CUT trade unionists who attended the Third Open World >Conference, pre-paratory committees were set up for the International >Day of Protest Against Privatisation and Deregulation in several states >of Brazil (which is a federalist state): Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Porto >Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Florianopolis, Curitiba, Cuiba, >Salvador de Bahia, Maceio, Recife, Forteleza, etc. Participating in >these committee are activists, deputies and municipal councillors of >all tendencies of the PT, of the PCdoB., trade union leaders and activists. > >The fightback against privatisation is of utmost urgency and necessity >at a time when the company Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) has just been >privatised. This national company, which possessed virtually all of >Brazil's mineral reserves, was sold off to the international speculator >Sores. > >In these conditions, at the initiative of preparatory committees for >the international day of struggle, thou-sands of workers and activists >have already joined the campaign to demand the cancellation of the >sale, the abrogation of the law on privatisation. The International Day >in Brazil has been called for May 27 (as the 30 and 31 of May are >natio-nal holidays). > >This day of protest is an integral part of the national situation which >has been marked by a heightened onslaught engineered by the Cardoso >government, the resistance of workers from the city and rural areas, by >the massive demonstration welcoming the landless workers in Brasilia. >These developments have placed on the agenda the formation of popular >assemblies, represen-tative of all the forces which are fighting back >against the govern-ment's anti-worker and anti-natio-nal plans, along >the line of a natio-nal popular assembly as a centrali-sing framework >for this fight. > >The international Day of Protest Against Privatisation and Deregulation >will include demonstrations in all the cities where these com-mittees >have been set up. In the morning, in Sao Paulo, will be held a >preparatory meeting to the conference against the ALCA (enlarging the >North American Free Trade Treaty to the rest of the Americas) and >against the Mercosur which will be held in July in Porto Alegre (State >of Rio Grande do Sul). > >Among the initiators of this conference: Flavio Koutzi, PT deputy from >the Rio Grande do Sul, Luiz Palo Pilla Vares, PT president and a number >of trade unionists from this state, Plinio de Aruda Sampaio, member of >the national leadership of the PT and Emanoel Melato, metal worker, >vice-president of the CUT in Sao Paulo. > >- Chile: The International Liaison Committee for a Workers' and >People's International (ILC) in Chile along with left socialists, the >Workers' Party of workers' activists regrouped in the Forum as well as >independent trade unionists are preparing a meeting in Santiago, Chile. > >- Ecuador: The committees formed in Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and >Ambata... are preparing a joint meeting of workers from Equator and >Peru which will be held on May 31 at the border between the two >countries in the city of Huaquillas. The trade unions from the >elec-tricity sector (AEOI and the trade union of the firm EMELEC) as >well as the national assembly of delegates of the firms of this sector >are calling for joint gathering. > >This gathering is all the more im-portant as in Ecuador a popular >uprising got rid of Bucaran, the corrupt president sold off to the IMF. >The country is also facing a political crisis which has spread to Peru. >This meeting is of great importance because we know from the past that >the governments and the oligarchies of these two coun-tries have no >scruples when its comes to resorting to chauvinisti >c provocation. > >- Mexico: On May 31 in Mexico will be held a preparatory meeting to the >San Francisco Conference against NAFTA, called for Novem-ber 1997 by >the AFL-CIO Confede-ration of California. Trade union delegates from >the 'SA will attend this meeting along side their Mexi-can comrades. > >The preparatory committee of the International Days of Protest on May >30 and 31, formed notably by representatives of the Mexico bus drivers >union (Sutaur 100), of the National Union of Education Work-ers, of >trade unions from the State Employees and Social Security Workers sectors. > >They have joined to organise demonstrations and gatherings in several >cities in Mexico: Mexico, Tuxla Gutierrez (in the heart of Chiapas), >Mexicali, near the border of the, where there will a be demonstration >against Clinton's threat to expel more than 2 million "undocumented" >workers of Mexican origin. In Hermosillo, Oaxaca, Morelia. > >- Haiti: A Rally will be organised by the Workers' and Peasants Party >whose constitutive congress took place in January 1997 at the >initiative of delegates who had attended the IIIrd Open World Conference. > >- Peru: The CGTP called for the gathering of Ecuadorian and Peruvian >workers at Huaguillas and is also preparing for May 30 a massive day of >mobilisation and demonstrations in Lima, Chimbote, and particularly in >Chiclayo, this city of workers from the sugar industry. > >- Uruguay: A public rally is being called for May 30 in Montevideo by >trade union activists in textile and health care. > >- USA: In the 'SA May 30 and 31 mark important steps forward towards >preparing the All-Americas Conference Against NAFTA, convened for >November 1997 in San Francisco at the call of the 21st Congress of the >AFL-CIO of California (the biggest AFL-CIO union council in the USA). > >Already, the appeal for this conference has received the support not >only from a large number of trade union bodies and officials in the >United States but also from officials and trade union organizations >from Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Brazil, Equator, Haiti, >Guadeloupe and Chile. > >On May 30 and 31, meetings will take place in several cities in the US. >For example in Saint Louis, in liaison with the organizations of public >hospital workers fighting back against the privatisation offensive and >attempt to close these hospitals. During the same period, after the >national tour of the Wo-men from the Waterfront from Liverpool, and >with the support of the San Francisco trade union council, delegations >will be organised on May 30 in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los >Angeles, Washing-ton, Chicago and Boston. > >ASIA > >- Bangladesh: A broad-based committee regrouping representa-tives from >several independent trade union confederations was formed under the >presidency of comrade Iqbal Majumder, general secretary of the National >Federation of Bangladesh workers, delegate to the IIIrd OWC. The new >govern-ment which owed its electoral success above all to the massive >re-jection of the corrupt regime which was openly >submitted to the IMF, the World Bank and its demands has already begun >to follow the same road as its predecessor. > >The resistance of the workers and their trade unions has for the >mo-ment pushed back the most recent attempt to widely privatise and >liquidate the textile and jute indus-tries. It's in these conditions >that the national committee has called for a protest demonstration on >May 30 in the capital of Bangladesh, Dacca. > >On the next day, May 31, a conference will be organised along the road >of forming an independent Party, representing the interests of workers >in the cities and the rural areas, calling on them to organise against >the dismembering of the country and its ruin, at a time when, as one >leader of the ILC in Bangladesh said: > >"The only ray of light in the dark political situation of our country >is the labour movement." > >- China: The international call for the days of protest and struggle >has been translated into Chinese and is being circulated in the country. > >- India: A gathering and a confe-rence will be held on May 30. They >have been convened notably by the activists and officials of several >independent trade unions which co-ordinate their activities in Bombay >and by the union of public service employees of the HMKP in Bom-bay. >These workers have recently been on strike against their working >conditions and privatisation. > >The great importance of the May 30 demonstration is its assertion of >working class independence at a time when a government coalition (in >which two Communist Parties in India participate and the other one >supports) is following policies of privatisation and adaptation to the >demands of the WTO, policies which lead to the dismantling of the >national economy. > >- Pakistan: The All Pakistan Trade-Union Federation, whose general >secretary is comrade Chudhary, participant at the IIIrd Open World >Conference as delegate from Pakistan, has taken charge of preparing >gatherings on May 30 and May 31 in the main cities of Pakistan. This >campaign is being waged in liaison with other trade union federations >who have united to fight against governmental measures being aimed >against the working class. > >Asserting the unity of workers throughout Pakistan is all the more >important that as comrade Chud-hary wrote, the policies dictated by the >IMF are resulting in the disintegration of the country: > >"The possibility that Pakistan be driven into open conflict between the >various nationalities has been aggravated by the fact that there is no >political party which can genui-nely unite the nation around its >program. Today Pakistan is a se-riously polarised country, both >vertically and horizontally. The poor are becoming poorer but they are >also becoming increasingly divided (...). > >Wherever the state proves itself incapable of assuming its functions, >the informal sector quickly deve-lops. Wherever the government proves >itself capable of providing jobs, the youth, with no where to go, tries >to find refuge under the protection of criminal Mafiosi. Wherever the >leading classes are totally occupied by trying to maintain their >privileges, those who are taking over the land are prospering. Wherever >illness and illiteracy predominate, armed gang-sters take advantage of >the misery and powerlessness of the people." > >- Sri Lanka: In Sri Lanka, the comrades present at the IIIrd OWC are at >the initiative of an appeal to restore trade union rights in the free >trade zones or special economic zone which exist in Sri Lanka as in >most other Asia countries. > >The comrade recalls that 40 million workers, from women to children in >Asia work in these zones where trade union rights are violated or >totally non-existent. The government, aligned with the IMF's >injunctions, has set up a vast plan of privatisation >(telecommunications, ports, etc.). A broad front regrouping 41 trade >union organizations addressed the government to demand a halt to the >privatisation plan and explicitly referred to the "decision of workers' >delegates from 70 countries who decided to organise an International >Day of Protest against Privatisation". > >The appeal of 41 organizations adds: "We reject as being false the >reasons put forward by the repre-sentatives of your government to >justify privatisation (...). > >We urgently request that you put an end to this program of >privatisation which is devastating our national resources... If you >persist, we will have no other alternative but to engage in determined >trade union action against these plans." > >This is the context in which the rally in Colombo will take place. > >- Vietnam: The International Appeal for the international days of >protest and struggle has been translated into Vietnamese and is being >circulating inside the country. > >JUNE 8 INTERNATIONAL MEETING IN GENEVA > >Enclosed you will find the most recent list of signatories of the >Appeal for the International Meeting in Defence of ILO Norms. To this >day, trade unionists and labour activists from 37 countries have >informed us of their intention to be present at the meeting: > >Europe: 1 from Portugal, 5 from Spain, 15 from France, 3 from Italy, 2 >from Belgium, 8 from Germany, 1 from Lithuania, 1 from Russia, 4 from >Romania, 2 from Hungary, 2 from Slovakia, 5 from Great-Britain, 40 from >Switzerland, 1 from ex-Yugoslavia, 1 from Ireland. > >Asia: 1 from Sri Lanka, 2 from Pakistan, 4 from India, 1 from >Bangladesh, 3 from Vietnam. > >Latin America: 1 from Peru, 5 from Brazil, 1 from Antilles-Guyane, 1 >from Haiti > >Africa: 2 from Egypt, 1 from Algeria, 1 from Mauritania, 2 from >Senegal, 2 from Niger, 1 from Burkina Faso, 2 from Togo, 1 from Benin, >1 from Cameroon, 1 from South Africa, 1 from Mauritius Republic, 2 from >Ivory Coast, 1 from Burundi. > >Between now and the holding of the meeting, we are expecting other >responses especially after reception by the organizations represented >at the annual ILO assembly of the letter inviting them to attend. > >First endorsers: > >Alioune Sow, general secretary of the Democratic Union of Senegal >Workers ('DTS) - Gaston Azoua, general secretary of the Workers Trade >Union Confederation of Benin (CSTB) - Thulani Hlatshwayo, president of >the Steel, Mining and Chemical Workers Union - Zwane Phumlane, >organizer, Security and General Workers Union of South Africa (SEGEW') >- Mandla, Steel, Mining and Chemical Workers Union of South > Africa (STEMCW') - Marcel Ette, general secretary of the Ivory Coast >Autonomous Trade Unions Federation (FESACI) - Franois K. Yao, general >secretary of the Ivory Coast Electricity and Gaz national trade union, >(SYNASEG) - Collen Lindsey, LALIT spokesman, Republic of Mauritius - >Deepak Benydin, president of the Trade union of Institutional Corps >(FSCC) and member of the national Committee of the All Workers >Conference of the Republic of Mauritius - Saley Seydou, responsible for >the international commission of the Workers Trade Unions Confederation >of Niger (USTN) - Abdallah Ould Mohamed, general secretary of the >Workers Confedera-tion of Mauritania (CGTM) - Gami Ngarmadjal, general >secretary of the Teachers Trade Union of Chad (SET) - Tol Sagnon, >general secretary of the General Confederation of Labour of Burkina >Faso (CGTB) - Salom Ntsogo, vice-president of the Free Trade Unions >Confederation bureau of Cameroon (USLC) - T.-N. Gbikpi-Bnissan, general >secretary of the National Union of the Independant Trade unions of Togo >(UNSIT) - Amar Takdjout, federal secretary of the National Federation >of the Textile and Leather Workers of Algeria (UGTA) - Charles >Ndabirabe, president of the Trade Union Confederation of Burundi (COSYBU). > >New endorsers: > >Bangladesh: Tafazzul Hussain, President of the Bangladesh National >Workers Federation, BJSF - Iqbal Majumder, General Secretary of the >Bangladesh National Workers Federation. - Mahtabur Rahman Bachu, >General Secreary, Keranigonj readymade Garment workers and employees >union - Abdul Khaleque, President Qwami Jute Mill workers and employees >union - Shahadat Hossain, President Chand Textile Mill work >ers union - Belayet Hossain, President, Sattar Jute Mill workers union >- Bachu Mia, General Secreary, Janata Jute mill workers union - Md. >Ismail Hossain, General secretary, Jute spinning and Twine miills >workers and employees federation - Rabiul Islam, Organising secretary, >Jute spinning and Twine miills workers and employees federation - Gazi >Hafizur Rahman, General secretary, Sundarban Textile >Mills workers union - Md. Hamidur Rahman, Preisdent, Dinajpur Textile >Mill workers union - Md. Wares Ali, President, Rajshahi Textile Mills >workers union - Fazlul Hoque Ripon, International Secretary BJSF - >Belgium: Pierre Marlhioux, member of the Executive Committee of the >SETC, Brussels, Hal, Vilvorde - Philippe de Menten, Trade unionist, >CGSP, education - Joseph Pennisi, Trade unionist, FGTB, scUty President >of the CUT of Sao Paulo, President of the Steel Workers Union of >Campinas - Luis Bicalho, member of the National Executive Committee of >the CUT - Jos Roque Fereira, Coordinator of the National Federation >(FNIST-CUT) and President of the Railway Workers Union of Bauru - Sao >Paulo - Ismael Cesar, member of the Executive Committee of the >Democratic Confederation of Federal Civil Servants, CONDSEF - Jos >Guilherme, member of the Executive Committee of the Town Civil Servants >Trade Union of Sao Paulo - Roldao Gomes Filho, President of the >Airports Ground Employees of Sao Paulo. France: Patrice Sifflet, >Movement of the Manifesto. - Germany : Dieter Fuchs, president of >Dsseldorf TV and other members of the TV and the Afa (SPD workers >commission) leadership - Tina Hauptmann and other shop stewards, TV, >Berlin -Great-Britain: Geoff Martin, UNISON trade union executive, >London region, Convenor of UNISON London Regional Committee - Jacki >Johnson, National Executive NATFHE, Lecturers' Union - Tom Hart, former >Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G) North East - >JM Bowie, Secretary of Accrington District T & G, Brown, Secretary >6/682 Branch T & G - Jimmy Nolan, Merseyside Docks Shop Stewards >Committee - Bobby Norton, Merseyside Docks Shop Stewards Committee - D. >McNally, Women of the Waterfront - Sue Mitchell, Women of the >Waterfront - Martin, secretary of the National Union of Journalists, >NUJ, section Magazine, for the region of London - Jo Marino, General >Secretary of the Bakers Federation Workers Union, BFWU. India: Namiath >Vasudevan, General Secretary, Social Protection trade union - Javier >Moron, General Secretary of the section 18 of the National Trade Union >of Education (SNTE) - Leonel Villafuerte, General Secretary of the Ruta >100 trade union of Mexico - Jorge Cuellar, labour and conflicts >relations executive, Ruta 100 trade union of Mexico. Pakistan: Gulzar >Ahmed Chudhary, General Secretary of the All Pakistan Trade Union >Federation - Mis >s Rubina Jamil, Secretary of the Pakistan Workers Confederation - >Fazal-e-Wahid, Chief Organiser of the Pakistan Railway Workers Union - >Sultan Khan, President of the Pharmaceutical and Chemical Trade Union >Federation - Malik Muhamad Arif, General Secretary of the Punjab Flour >Mill Workers Federation - Hafiz-ullah Cheema, President of the >Vegetable Ghee and Oil Mills Workers Federation. Peru: Juan Deputy >General Secretary of the Building Industry Workers Federation - Victor >Herrera, Federation of the Building Industry Workers - Adolfo Pea >Olivos, Town Civil Servants Union - Amedeo Ato, Alejandro Garibay, >Eduardo Chavarry, Petroleum Workers - Juan Pachas, Pedro Orillana, >Regional Front of Workers - Pedro Ramos, Gregorio Chavez, Hilario >Narvaez, Workers Federation of the Trujillo region - Rau >l Rodriguez Valle, General Secretary of the Drinkable Water System >Workers of Lima - Rodriguez Flores, General Secretary of the Libertad >Region Workers - Erwin Salazar, Workers Trade Union of Lambayeque - >Dionisio Mejia Ramos, Teodoro Puertas, Siderperu trade union laid off >leaders. Rumania: Constantin Cretan, Deputy President of the Miners >Federation (FSM) - Florin Orban, President of the Radio j >dent FSM, Motru - Nicolae Predescu, First Deputy President of Salvamin, >Motru - Cristea Fluecatoru, Secretary of Salvamin Motru. Spain: >Marcelino Camacho Abad, former General Secretary of the Workers >Commissions (CCOO) - Jos Miguel Villa, General Secretary of the UGT >Services Federation of Madrid, member of the Confederal Committee of >the UGT - Jos Cardo, General Secretary of Euskadi UGT Federation of >Industries - Santiago Tamames, General Secretary of the PTT Sorting >office trade union of Chamartin, UGT (Madrid) - Fernando Valle, General >Secretary of the Spanish Federation of Woodwork and Building Industry >(UGT) of the Castellon province - Atilano Escobar, member of the >Executive Committee of the Federation of Woodwork and Building Industry >(FECOMA - CCOO) of the Valencia region. >San Francisco Chapter, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, >LCLAA, Coordinator, Western Hemisphere Conference. > > > > > > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 29 22:44:57 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 21:04:09 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:26 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:59:26 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: "Globalization from Below" Conference Sender: meisenscher@igc.org >From: Spoon Collective >To: spoon-announcements@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU > [Spoon-Announcements is a moderated list for distributing info of > wide enough interest without cross-posting. To unsub, send the message > "unsubscribe spoon-announcements" to majordomo@lists.village.virginia.edu] > >>From jpb8@acpub.duke.edu Thu May 29 13:20:37 1997 >Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 03:54:29 -0400 (EDT) >From: Jon Beasley-Murray >To: spoon-announcements@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU >Subject: cfp "Globalization from Below"=20 > > >please post and/or forward to interested parties... > > "Globalization From Below: > Contingency and Contestation in Historical Perspective" > > an international conference at Duke University, Durham, NC > > February 5th-8th, 1998 > >First call for papers: abstracts due October 15th 1997 > > >If globalization is such a multivocal and complex process, constituted by= =20 >numerous axes of domination and innovation, why have its analyses tended=20 >to be so singleminded and monolingual? > > >We invite papers on topics such as the following: > >=A5 globalization in historical context=20 >=A5 "disorganized" labor and "disorganized" capital=20 >=A5 from slavery to emancipation=20 >=A5 the politics of the family and the post-welfare state >=A5 forced labor, wage labor, affective labor, immaterial labor >=A5 the black Atlantic, the cosmic race: hybridities and traditions=20 >=A5 struggle and revolution =A5 gendering the global economy=20 >=A5 capital flight as response to labor movement(s) >=A5 identity, ethnicity, and culture in flux=20 >=A5 internationalism and post-nationalism >=A5 technology and resistance: the internet protest and organization=20 >=A5 women and global networks >=A5 the environment and environmentalism =A5 development and its= discontents >=A5 labor history: workers and workers' movements in a global market >=A5 national responses to increasing capital mobility=20 >=A5 prostitution in migrant economies =A5 contesting the old/new world= order=20 >=A5 intellectual property, the privatization of information, and free trade >=A5 the autonomy of capitalist command; the anatomy of new social movements >=A5 the "postwork" society, from unemployment to pensions=20 >=A5 place, space and globalization =A5 gender, race, labor & imperialism=20 >=A5 the Atlantic economy in the age of revolutions >=A5 from the plantation to las maquiladoras=20 >=A5 Domestic work and international migration >=A5 wages for housework: the price of reproduction >=A5 communication networks: spreading subversion, disseminating ideology >=A5 peripheral modernities and the third world in the developed heartland >=A5 the welfare state in a global society >=A5 the country and the city: urbanizations and nationalisms >=A5 reactive capital, working class autonomy > > >Please send one-page abstracts by October 15th 1997 to: > >Jon Beasley-Murray, Vince Brown, or Paul Husbands >"Globalization from Below" conference >Center for International Studies >Box 90404 >Duke University >Durham, NC 27708-0404 > >tel. (919) 490 6475 >email jpb8@acpub.duke.edu, vabviv@acpub.duke.edu, husbands@acpub.duke.edu >conference webpage: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/global/ > >Sponsored by the graduate seminar in Interdisciplinary Studies with=20 >funding from the Ford Foundation, the Trent Foundation, and Duke=20 >University's Center for International Studies > >----- >Further information: > >"Globalization From Below: Contingency and Contestation in Historical=20 >Perspective" > >This conference is concerned with "globalization" as a dynamic, contested= =20 >and often contingent process. Rather than concentrating upon the huge,=20 >apparently irresistible structures that have shaped our world in the last= =20 >500 years we will look rather at how different people and groups in=20 >specific situations and places have struggled to come to terms with, and=20 >often conduct resistance against, the developing global system. =20 > >Globalization is all too often defined in strictly economistic terms, but= =20 >by drawing attention to the negotiations that have constituted=20 >globalization at the local level we hope to understand it in more complex= =20 >and nuanced ways. In so doing we hope to re-conceptualize globalization=20 >as a process that is and has been more open-ended and full of=20 >possibilities than is generally recognized. > >Is there a fixed direction inherent in globalization? Or have global=20 >processes sometimes historically resulted from ad hoc responses to=20 >specific conditions and local resistances--both organized and=20 >disorganized? How have temporary stratagems come to seem--or come to=20 >be--such overwhelming forces? =20 > >The current wave of globalization has transformed the composition of the=20 >various forces and groups that make up the global system--allowing=20 >perhaps new social movements or multinational conglomerates to come to=20 >the fore. Thus traditional alliances are restructured and historic=20 >antagonisms dissipated or rekindled. We propose a historically informed=20 >investigation into the balance of power and states of struggle that result. > > > > > > From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Thu May 29 23:00:18 1997 Thu, 29 May 1997 21:07:58 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 29 May 1997 19:58:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:58:58 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: World Bank/IMF Briefing papers Sender: meisenscher@igc.org WB50YEARS@IGC.ORG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice is a coalition of over 200 US organizations (policy, labor, grassroots, peace, solidarity, women's, youth, etc) committed to the profound transformation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). We know and have published briefing papers that map the ways in which the World Bank & IMF facilitate massive corporate welfare. *(The packets are available for $8.00 -- to defray postage & production costs). Also in making these connections we have also shown how the G-7 countries (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) drive the international economic agenda in ways that mostly benefit corporation and the very wealthy. We will be participating at the Peoples' Summit/The other Economic Summit (TOES) in Denver June 19-22 when the G-7/Summit of the Eight meets. TOES is an attempt in each of the G-7 countries, since 1984, to offer an alternative view of the world which is absent from the official meetings. There will be workshops (over 75 of them over 3 days), direct actions, demos & protests, cultural events, etc at TOES/Peoples' Summit. It is an unique opportunity to learn and work with activists from around the U.S. and around the world. The point of all this is that this is an unique opportunity to get started, to learn, etc for activists and I urge you all consider going to Denver to work and learn with other activists. For more information on TOES/Peoples' Summit visit their web page at: http://pender.ee.upenn.edu/~rabii/toes/ For more information about the 50 Years IS Enough Network, please send me your postal address and I will mail you the packets for $8.00. In Peace & Solidarity, Njoki Njoroge Njehu 50 Years Is Enough Network Public Outreach / Events Coordinator Phone: 202/IMF-BANK Fax: 202/879-3186 From shostaka@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Fri May 30 04:53:43 1997 Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 06:04:08 -0500 To: LABOR-RAP@csf.colorado.edu From: Art Shostak Subject: Request for Feedback Brothers and Sisters: I would appreciate your thoughts about the ideas raised in this latest essay of mine: It is the basis of the book I am writing entitled CyberUnion: America's 21st Century Labor Movement: On the Revitalization of the U.S, Labor Movement: Can 21st Century CyberUnions be Created in Time? or Will CyberUnions Compute? Prepared for the Silver Anniversary Conference: 25 Years of Higher Education Collective Bargaining April 14-15, 1997 The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions Baruch College, CUNY School of Public Affairs Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D Professor of Sociology Drexel University Dept. of Psychology and Sociology Phil., PA 19104 (ShostakA@DUVM.OCS.DREXEL.EDU HTTP://HTTPSRV.OCS.DREXEL.EDU/FACULTY/SHOSTAKA) =46eedback welcomed. If the Guinness Book of records were to salute the fastest reversal of fortune in recent years by a major American organization, the AFL-CIO would be a clear contender for the title. Agent of its own breathless recovery, one that still astonishes its would-be pall bearers, the AFL-CIO has only "just begun to fight." It might yet even earn the renewal of its most strategic international union affiliates, this as formidable a challenge to it as anything posed by its harshest corporate and political critics. As recently as two years ago, an AFL-CIO led by Lane Kirkland, and the labor movement as a whole, was widely dismissed as a hapless has-been, a dinosaur, a brain-damaged relic from the Age of Smokestack Industries, a Second Wave anachronism. It was fashionable to suspect labor was a lost cause, and many "Sunshine Soldiers and Summer Patriots" had no problem abandoning it. Now, intemperate opponents accuse the Federation (AFL-CIO) of posing a clear and present danger to the Republic. Leading Republicans (Senators Robert Dole, Newt Gingrich, etc.) insist organized labor is once again a formidable foe of all that is right and proper. Anti-labor editorialists and their editorial cartoon cronies heap abuse on the heads of "Union Bosses," and conservative syndicated columnists (George F. Will, William Raspberry, etc.) renew their once-lapsed attack against "Big Labor," union goons, compulsory unionism, and other such matters. Further evidence of labor's new significance comes from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Recent public opinion polls generally report increasingly favorable attitudes toward labor unions. Similarly, previously indifferent academics have been creating Labor-Academic Teach-Ins across the country (ten on October 3, 1996, alone), and over 1,500 collegians served labor's Cause in 1996's "Union Summer" AFL-CIO project. Best of all for labor, the media has been giving all of this considerable attention, some of it even positive. The resulting buzz underlines an influential notion abroad in the land - labor is back! Three questions cut to the heart of the matter: First, how really different is the new AFL-CIO? Has the competition between the Kirkland and the Sweeney models of a labor federation really made a difference? Second, are the Sweeney-initiated changes enough? Can they possible secure labor's survival? And finally, what else might the AFL- CIO and its affiliates do to heighten their prospects? Is there an agenda of change related to the arrival of the Information Age that warrants greater-than-ever attention from, and adaptation by Organized Labor? To briefly anticipate my answers, I believe differences between the old and new models of the AFL-CIO are quite substantial. However, they may not be enough to counter all that is arrayed against labor. Rapid employ is necessary of what I call the CyberUnion model, one already under development in the new AFL-CIO and a small number of especially progressive unions. Is There A New AFL-CIO? Examples abound of major changes from the ailing AFL-CIO model overseen for nearly two decades by Lane Kirk-land, a prot=E9g=E9 of George Meany. Like his mentor, Kirkland was a pragmatic, narrow, hard-boiled, unsentimental curmudgeon and Cold Warrior. His was a prosaic and hide-bound view of unionism, one rooted an in old-fashioned "control and command" model that intimidated opponents, suppressed dissent, and assured only under-supported changes that invariably helped preserve the status quo. Since October, 1995, Kirkland's successor, former SEIU president John Sweeney, has championed a far more adventurous and far less elitist model. Still in its formative stage, it has its start-up share of gaps and inconsistencies . This notwithstanding, the Sweeney "New Voices" coali-tion already sets the AFL-CIO far apart from its predecessor, as it has implemented differences (not the least of which was quickly "accepting" the early retirement, etc., of over 60 staffers) that appear to make a strategic difference. . Consider the following ten examples of change in the federation's practices and ethos, each of which has made a significant contribution to its reinvention, and thereby, to the renewal of the entire labor movement: 1.) No longer do top leaders bask in the sun at every winters' annual Meeting in Bal Harbor, Fla., as they have for the past 70 years. And no longer is this regarded as a perk only for the exercise of Byzantine Palace politics and Machieavellian career maneuvers. Instead, the annual Winter Meeting was ceremoniously moved this year to Los Angeles, the better to enable attendees to show up and lend support at high-profile picket lines. It will continue to move around the country, even pitching its tent in gritty once-industrial cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh. The Sweeney team believes this "down-and-dirty" location strategy should help boost local morale, as the top brass will deliberately get out and mingle with area activists who might otherwise not have such an opportunity. It should strengthen the impression that AFL-CIO leaders now mean to stay close both to members and to urban and industrial conflict realities alike. 2.) No longer does the AFL-CIO Executive Council consist almost exclusively of old white men (with a token one or two women and persons of color carefully included to possibly dilute criticism). This picture, mirroring as it did the hegemony of male, pale, stale, and stolid leaders, has fed anti-union propaganda for decades, and cost labor untold votes from women and non-whites in critical NLRB elections. Now, a widely-expanded Council (54 members) includes Asian-Pacific Americans, Hispanics, and far more African Americans and women that ever before. As well, the Sweeney team itself includes the highest level female executive officer (Linda Chavez-Thompson) in the Federation's history. 3.) No longer are AFL-CIO research staffers constrained to focus on narrow policy matters, on specific pieces of legislation pending or under way, thereby assuring only a reactive and defensive position from labor lobbyists or its few political allies. Under Kirkland the AFL-CIO had been reduced to fighting primarily for its own narrow sectional interests. Attention was often diverted thereby from larger social justice objectives that had animated labor's New Deal legislative agenda. Instead, a new AFL-CIO Department for Public Policy operates far more like an imaginative think tank, one that has been encouraged to take a long-range proactive view of economic and social issues. Thoroughly revamped, it is expected to soon offer some "out of the box" policy reform ideas, many possibly as populist and visionary as those with which labor was identified back in the New Deal era. 4.) No longer will the Fed look the other way while high-priced consultants casually steer Taft-Hartley pension fund millions into the stocks of rabidly anti-union corporations. Instead, the Fed is busy clarifying investment mechanisms whereby the "Green Power" represented by billions of pension dollars might finally be employed as a pro-labor weapon in economic matters. Firms that treat unions with respect will get union money invested in their stocks; others will not. Firms that treat unions with respect can also expect labor to side with progressive company leaders on proxy vote issues. Others will face the combined opposition of labor and its new allies among massive socially-concerned funds (those of certain municipal governments, colleges, foundations, religious order, churches, and socially-screened investment funds). This coalition continues to challenge narrow definitions of corporate profitability and responsibility, promoting instead a populist notion of stakeholder rights and responsibilities, e.g., opposition to offshore relocation of jobs, arbitrary downsizing and plant-closings, etc. Already one three year-old multi-million dollar fund, Union Standard Trust, invests only in its own list of over 400 firms that qualify as especially-friendly-to-labor: To the political and financial satisfaction of its many labor supporters, the UST regularly out-performs the Standard and Poors Index. 5.) No longer does the AFL-CIO cite the autonomy of its affiliates in wanly excusing the very poor record of cooperation by unions with one another's struggles. No longer does it shrug with (feigned) helplessness when confronted by the fratricidal raids of certain of its unions on others of its unions. Instead, the new federation has begun to vigorously encourage - and help finance - high-powered campaigns of inter-union mutual aid, this an overdue boost to the ancient notion of "solidarity." AFL-CIO staffers are given longer time, more authority, better media coverage, and far more funds that previously true of such ventures. As well, it has begun to clarify vague matters of jurisdiction so as to discourage raids even while encouraging outreach to unorganized groups previously overlooked. 6.) Similarly, in this matter of coalition-building, no longer does the AFL-CIO cite divisions in the ranks as an excuse for avoiding contact, better yet alliances with certain stigmatized groups of workers. Instead, the new AFL-CIO, for example, works with the Gay and Lesbian Task Force on the basis of mutual respect, attention being paid in particular to achieving contractual language that adds "sexual orientation" to the list of protected classes in a contract's inclusion clause. The AFL-CIO also collaborates with controversial community-organizing groups like ACORN. Together they are trying to secure the right to organize for more than one million former welfare recipients forced into the workforce. The AFL-CIO is campaigning to secure "Living Wage" legislation in key cities, and it demonstrates alongside of welfare recip-ients seeking justice and compassion in the enactment of experimental state welfare laws. Consistent with this enlargement of the mission, the Federation's new Working Women's Department has launched a campaign to publicize "pocketbook" issues important to ALL women, whether dues payers or not - this an assertive variation of the Federation's attention-getting "America Needs a Raise" campaign. 7.) No longer does the AFL-CIO cooperate with the CIA and other shadowy government groups in the promotion of anti-communist elements overseas, even when this means turning its back on indigenous labor groups at odds with right-wing dictators and iron fist authoritarians. Instead, the new AFL-CIO is thoroughly revamping its overseas operations. It is severing ties with right-wing pseudo-labor organiza-tions in developing nations, and it is opening cordial relations with pro-union indigenous activists who would probably not earn the approval of American Far Right ideologues. 8.) No longer is the Fed's political action effort primarily a matter of conventional phone bank efforts and PAC donations, a combination better known for post-election excuses (and oblique condemnation of the unreliability of the rank-and-file) than for its ballot-box successes. Instead, as the 1996 presidential election demonstrated, the new AFL-CIO brings flair, pizzas, and high energy to a creative effort: Its $35 million expenditure on catchy TY ads, house-to-house campaigning, and centrist policies helped it capture media attention and the wrath of surprised conservatives who had erroneously written it off. When the smoked clear Labor had helped defeat 18 targeted candidates for the House, It had helped protect Medicare and the Minimum Wage. And it had turned two and a half million voters it had lost in 1994 back into labor's column. It showed the nation it was still quite alive, and it gave members an overdue sense of their power through the ballot. Little surprise, accordingly, that unions like AGSCME claim more members gave voluntary donations, time, and effort than in any other previous election. 9.) No longer do Federation affiliates (74 unions) comfortably oper-ate in accord with the infamous "Rule of Five." That is, accept as unexcep-tional the practice whereby their organizing budget was held to no more than 5% of the union's financial (and human) resources. A major explanation for the failure of many organizing campaigns, the Rule covertly assured incumbent officers that few newcomers would soon threaten the status quo (as in the case of their re-election chances). It belonged to a tired burned-out model of unionism, one that barely served the needs of a declining number of gray-haired white males. Little wonder that labor declined a calamitous decline from 36% of the work-force in 1953 to only 14% at present. In place of the fatalism and foreboding that characterized discussions of organizing in the pre-Sweeney years, new AFL-CIO influentials like Richard Trumpka, Linda Chavez-Thompson, and others, move effectively to repeal the Rule of Five. Where once top leaders seemed to lack the conviction that labor's numbers could soon increase, they barnstorm endlessly, arguing just the opposite - and they offer concrete examples of organizing wins being earned (or at least vigorously sought) here, there, and elsewhere. Created by six major unions in 1989, the innovative AFL-CIO Organizing Institute has had its size, funds, and staff vastly increased. Its successful 1996 "Union Summer" Project, one that rewarded labor with great PR and a sizable number of new young and energetic organizers, has earned a repeat effort in 1997. The difference this time involves creation of a small army of volunteer union retirees, many of whom will mentor college students and other young adults eager to test whether labor is their Calling. A small number of very large internationals (AFSCME, AFT, CWA, IBT, UFCW, UNITE, etc.), impressed with the organizing gains racked by up recently by Sweeney's old union, the SEIU ( as from the Justice for Janitors campaign, etc.), are making substantial increases in their own organizing outlay (funds, personnel, publicity, priority, etc.). To their credit, and fully in the spirit of the Sweeney emphasis on grass-roots involvement, they are also making considerable use of their own members as volunteer organizers, thereby aiding a related cause - organizing the organized! Progress has been elusive: For all of the razzle-dazzle of the new AFL-CIO these past two years, during the first six months of 1996 its 74 AFL-CIO affiliates participated in fewer elections, and lost more of them than in the same period in 1995 - when Sweeney took charge. Indeed, Labor in 1996 gained en toto only 12,000 new members - when 300,000 are thought necessary to just stand still as a percent of the labor force, and a million new members would be required to move labor from 14% up to 15% of all workers. ... gains that have not been approached for over 60 years. Undaunted by these numbers, the Sweeney team insists the picture would be far worse but for the innovations and esprit they bring to the organizing challenge. To judge cautiously from a manifest pickup in media coverage of this organizing campaign and that one, often surprisingly sympathetic coverage, the AFL-CIO may finally be at the beginning of a winning streak.. 10.) No longer does the AFL-CIO have to limp along on a stringency budget, one than can serve plaintively as an excuse not to attempt this bold and expensive venture, or that one. Nor is it hostage as in the past to the withholding of critical per capita funds by a petulant union president irked by this or that action of the Executive Council Instead, the federation can now leverage a new source of substantial revenue of its own - revenue fees from an improved AFL-CIO credit card. In its 1996 arrangement with Household International, the fed has been guaranteed that it will earn at least $75 million a year in royalties over the next five years. That will exceed by $10 million a year the amount the old AFL-CIO collected as dues from affiliates. To be sure, critics inside and outside of labor condemn the credit card as a timid response that diverts attention from fundamental problems, and confuses the role of the federation with that of the consumer culture. Proponents rebut that members appreciate the savings, prefer to see labor make something on their purchases, and welcome a painless opportunity to lend support. Thanks to this windfall, the Sweeney administration is cautiously buying imaginative upgrades the Kirkland team might have dismissed as over-priced frills, e.g., the entire AFL-CIO building is being re-engineered for cutting-edge fiber optic telecommunication systems, the better to position the Labor Movement to prove a major player in the cyberspace world that beckons (more on this later). This ten-item list could be extended quite abit, as mention should be made of the new emphasis on revitalizing near-moribund city central bodies and state federations. The point, however, is already clear: The differences between the Sweeney model and its predecessor come close to being differences of kind rather than degree. The Sweeney "New Voices" leadership team is animated by a vision of unionism quite distinct from that known to the Kirkland entourage. Sweeney and his colleagues have initiated a thoroughgoing overhaul and redirection of the AFL-CIO, a "velvet revolution" still quite young and far from complete (indeed, enthusiasts contend the AFL-CIO will deliberately model an open-ended on-going renewal process). They have positioned organized labor, or at least that aspect of it under their control, at the cutting-edge of democratic social change. Keenly aware labor is at a flex point in its history, theirs is an administration that does not fear to dare, and intends to make the most of its every opportunity. Is It Enough? My second question asks - Is it enough? Can it provide enough of a shield, and protect enough time, for labor to end its slippage, and possibly even begin to increase its percent representation of the nation's workforce? Possibly not, though not for any lack of trying on the part of the new AFL-CIO. The problem lies elsewhere, lies, that is, in the limits that operate on a federation whose affiliates commonly lag far behind it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the AFL-CIO can only be as strong as its major affiliates, and this dependency of the federation could prove its Achilles Heel. The merits and demerits of the 74 AFL-CIO unions will determine if there are any unions left tomorrow to affiliate with an AFL-CIO. Here is where the fate of Organized Labor may especially be decided - and the picture is far less clear than in true of Sweeney's re-newal of the Federation. Where the major international unions are concerned, turmoil seems the order of the day. An impartial student of the 74 international unions on whom the AFL-CIO depends would have to conclude they leave much to be desired. Many are still dominated by the desire of officers not to have to "return to the tools," a desire which translates into the fiercest type of protective politics and defensive stratagems. Many have little or nothing to with other unions, even those allied in the same industry. Many are far behind the curve where the employ of modern communication tools and approaches are concerned. Many wish for the "old shoe" comfort of years past, and find the hurly-burly of the fin-de-millennium damn near over-whelming. Membership continues to decline as do dues revenues. Opposition to dues increases grows, as does disagreement about the course labor should take next. Leaders are being replaced faster than ever, locals are being consolidated more than ever, and mergers (like that of the UAW, the Machinists, and the Steelworkers) are in the wind. Uncertainty and impermanence characterize the lives of officers and staffers alike, with problematic morale the order of the day. None of this encourages the kind of bold risk-taking that the AFL-CIO models, and this is the rub: Without such innovation by the interna-tional unions themselves, much of the potential gain of the =46ederation is undermined. Nostalgic for the somnambulistic Kirkland years= , but intrigued by the razzle-dazzle appeal of the Sweeney model, many international unions appear ready for something, for almost anything, but they seem to know not what. "Solving" for an Age of Information. My third and final question asks - What else might the AFL-CIO and its affiliates do to heighten their pros-pects? Is there an agenda of change related to the arrival of the Information Age that warrants greater-than-ever attention from, and adaptation by Organized Labor? With mind-boggling speed the so-called Age of Information has swept in and engulfed organized labor in a world surely not of its own making, but rife nevertheless with rich opportunities. Infotech, or the mix of gadgets spawned by a synthesis of computers and telecommun-ications, revolutionizes organizations and the lives of us all. Cellular phones abound. We wonder how we ever got anything done before email. We take the fax for granted, and watch with wonder while the Internet transforms itself before our eyes. Our children ask how did we ever get along before search engines, personal homepages, Nintendo, Myst, interactive games, chat rooms, and the exotic like. Much to its credit, the AFL-CIO and certain of its major affiliates have moved quickly to turn infotech to advantage. The AFL-CIO's LaborNet service on Compuserve, for example, has pioneered in bringing both official information and informal chat rooms to union activists. International homepages, and those of especially forward-looking locals can be found on the Internet, along with specialized listserves, such as PubLabor, that enable unionists to engage in free-wheeling focused discussions (as, for example, of items of special interest to public sector unionists). Equally impressive are such innovations as the use the Hotel and Restaurant Union is making of a site on the Net to warn unionists away from hotels it is picketing. The Flight Attendants Union has created a Net site for collecting complaints from members about airplane equipment problems the union intends to soon address. Insurgents in the American Airline Pilots Union are using faxes and email to rally their troops. And cyberprotesters around the world recently rallied to bombard Bridge-stone-Firestone executives with email protesting the company's treatment of its American work force. More and more, labor cannot hold its own in arbitrations unless its representative is using a laptop. It cannot match the other side of the bargaining table unless its representative is using a modular phone, a fax, and a laptop. It cannot bring back useful material from a discussion or conference unless conveyed via a modular phone or swiftly word-processed into a laptop. All of these forms of empowerment and more are opera-tional today, but they appear true of only a very small proportion of union professionals. Labor's effort here falls far short of the potential, as it remains inchoate and directionless. Labor's various computer instructors, for example, are still not knit together in one organization, and do not even have their own listserve. Various locals are busy re-inventing the wheel in infotech applications because their international does not have a central office to help field-proven tools gain employ. No cross-fertilization occurs, except sporadically when a good listserve like PubLabor has a contributor highlight an infotech gain. Try the CyberUnion Model. The time is at hand for the AFL-CIO and particularly assertive affiliates to consider adoption of the CyberUnion model, an intriguing 21st century approach to trade unionism. Marked by enthusiasm for the Age of Information, it is creative in making the most of what other frustrated unions find daunting in the extreme. A CyberUnion stands out in its employ of futuristics (a perspective), infotech (cutting-edge tools), and tradition (a commitment). Its appreciation for what "F-I-T" can do for it has enthusiasts believing the CyberUnion could enable labor to surge early in the next century. Employing an art form known as futuristics, a CyberUnion will replace the narrow "putting-out-fires" orientation of most unions with a longer perspective, one that encompasses the here-and-now, but extends 5 and 10 years beyond it. It will replace a narrow tolerance for shopworn communication tools (newsletters, mailings, etc.) with a high-tech perspective, one that upgrades familiar tools (as in adding color to the newletter) even as it moves to the cutting-edge (email for all; listserves for many; etc.). Finally, it will replace hollow observances of union traditions with whole-hearted celebration, the better to ensure that labor's high tech gains are always accompanied by comparable high touch advances, e.g., a local's history and traditions could be "captured" in a memorable CD-ROM provided to all. Infotech Employ. Leaving further discussion of both futuristics and tradition for another time, a CyberUnion's employ of infotech might include at least five features: 1) It will employ infotech tools to regularly survey members, both actual and potential, to learn in depth what are their needs and wants, their dreams and night-mares. 2.) It will employ infotech tools to keep members abreast of relevant developments, and, to learn of such from the rank-and-file. The union's homepage is updated daily, and email of real merit flows often back and forth between officers and the rank-and-file. 3.) It will employ infotech tools to survey members and ascertain preferences and priorities among major questions confronting the organization. Every effort is made to improve member participation in union policy- making. 4.) It will make all of its officers and staffers accessible to members via email, and promises personal responses within 72 hours of a message's receipt. 5.) It will update its infotech infrastructure regularly. It will take pride both in being at the cutting-edge, and, in making a special effort to take the membership there with it. These five attributes should help put labor unions on a par with the CyberCorps rapidly coming their way. They should send the message that labor is finally and actually "with it!," a message of import for the union's membership, the media, the public, and the business community alike. And they should empower the rank-and-file as never before. Unions uniquely blend humanistic, ethical, and materialistic con-cerns. They should be able to produce a distinctive set of infotech-use rewards, one that will have the citizenry sit up, notice, and applaud. They should be able to get Americans to think of unions, and not just of corpor-ations, when they think about successful cutting-edge organizations. And they should mentor their membership in closing the gap between Info-Haves and Have-Nots, arguably the greatest threat posed now to the demo-cracy. Doubts and Misgivings. Skeptics will dismiss futuristics as only for the secure; infotech, as only for an effete elite; and tradition, as only for those less busy than unionists with barely surviving, better yet celebra-ting anything. They will insist the vast majority of union members are outside the infotech loop, and that this CyberUnion prescription is therefore irrelevant. In rebuttal, proponents can point out ever more unionized workers co-exist with infotech, and especially with computers, at work. Even if the average unionist's living room does not presently contain a PC, the work station probably does. As well, advances in inexpensive devices to access the Internet without a PC (webservers, etc.) promise to soon vastly expand the reach of the Net (to say nothing of speculation that a voice-activated/voice-responsive Palmtop, or very small computer worn on the wrist, may be commonplace by 2005AD). The point, in short, is really not that of hardware or access to it. Rather, the point is to rapidly and thoroughly link labor with all that a smart organization can draw out of infotech, and to "bookend" such adaptation with the ballast of tradition and the headiness of futuristics. Contrary to the misgivings of detractors, adoption of a CyberUnion model is not an implausible or impractical proposal. It builds on initiatives the AFL-CIO and key unions have already begun to take. (The fact that the Sweeney team renamed the AFL-CIO News, their bland and unexceptional house organ, Americ@Work, and transformed it into a bright, brassy, and "hip" publication, is much to the point). This model could invigorate adapters, inspire the membership, favorably impress pros-pective members, intimidate labor's opponents, intrigue vote-seek-ers, and in other valuable ways, significantly bolster labor's chances. Getting the AFL-CIO On Board. Provided, that is, that the AFL-CIO rises to the occasion. It could create a new Office for CyberUnions@Work, one that could serve as an "R&D" center for the promotion of the Cyber-Union model. The Office could hire infotech experts, scrutinize the vast infotech literature (hardcopy as well as Net material), represent labor at major infotech conferences, and in 1,001 other ways, help assure that labor stays at the cutting-edge in its employ of infotech potential. Similarly, the Office could scan the literature in futuristics, interview leading long-range forecasters, represent organized labor at meetings of futurists, and help unions and locals learn how to employ forecasting to advantage. Where tradition is concerned, the Office could study the success of "Bread and Roses," the art and theater project of District 1199-C, and the Annual Labor Arts Festival at the Meany Center, along with similar sources of lessons for bringing along the best of the past into the future. With guidance from the Office, the AFL-CIO could devote an entire page in every issue of Americ@Work to CyberUnion innovations field-proven by a union affiliate and available now for adoption by others. It could highlight such advances at its various meetings, run competitions, and award prizes for outstanding projects. It could pioneer CyberUnion tactics, gadgets, and applications itself, taking care always to promote their employ by its affiliates. The AFL-CIO could ask its educational unit, The George Meany Center for Labor Studies (which President Sweeney enjoys calling Labor's "War College") to create a degree-granting program in CyberUnion Studies. Graduates could be placed with internationals and large locals long ago convince that they either secure infotech craft or fall hopeless behind. Similarly, the AFL-CIO could encourage the University and College Labor Educators Association to begin including CyberUnion material in labor ed programs from coast to coast. Finally, in recognition of the global nature of this challenge, the new AFL-CIO Office of CyberUnions@Work could sponsor an Annual Inter-national Meeting of interested laborites from nations hither and yon. Daily contact among such influentials via teleconferences and email should vastly increase the international exchange of ideas. Nevertheless, annual opportunities for hands-on demonstrations will probably long make a uniquely valuable contribution. In short, mind-boggling advances in Information Age dynamics will undoubtedly sow much new confusion. Organized labor, thanks to its CyberUnion use of futuristics, infotech, and tradition (F-I-T), should have good utilization experiences to draw on, pride in accomplishment, and a heady sense of adventure about it all. Summary. Organized labor, for the first time in 35 years, is moving again, showing its "smarts," and feeling cautiously hopeful. If it is keep up momentum, the AFL-CIO and its major affiliates must speed up their development of a 21st century CyberUnion model. Supporters are encouraged by evidence the Sweeney team and its union allies intend to make the most of futuristics, infotech, and tradition (F-I-T). If they have their way, America's new CyberUnions will show the world that unionism does "compute" in our Age of Information. Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/ "This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Fri May 30 10:27:53 1997 for ; Fri, 30 May 1997 09:21:40 -0700 (PDT) Fri, 30 May 1997 09:21:15 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 09:21:15 -0700 (PDT) To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu, Labor Research and Action Project From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Re: Request for Feedback Sender: meisenscher@igc.org Dear Art: Thanks for sharing your interesting, provocative, and useful article on CyberUnions. While I have opinions about particular details, a general observation might be more useful to you. The most significant weakness or Achilles Heel of the U.S. labor movement is that it lacks an organic relationship to the lives, workplaces, and communities of working and poor people for whom it claims to speak. Where those relationships exist, technology can be used to strengthen and serve them. No amount of technology can overcome that weakness nor bypass the need to create those relationships where they are absent. Solidarity is not something that can be created in cyberspace. Virtual solidarity is not going to save the labor movement from continuing decline. Solidarity today, as yesterday, is about the interpersonal bonds between workers who identify their interests in common, who stand up for one another in their struggles, and who understand their common fate depends on the extent and depth of their solidaristic capacities. Technology can be placed in service to solidarity, but can not manufacture solidarity. Your article offers a number of useful observations about the present state of the labor movement, but omits (avoids?) one of such great importance that it begs discussion -- that is the lack of democracy within most labor unions. I am not speaking about the formal structures of democracy (although those are woefully underdeveloped in all too many unions, and even where they formally exist are often subverted). I speak of the content of the relationship of members to their unions. One failing of the Sweeney leadership is that it has replaced a somnulent, bureaucratized, conservative administrative elite with another elite composed of aggressive, innovative, young technocratic activists. It is an improvement to be sure, but what of union members? Rather than a staid traditional form of business union identified with the Kirkland/Donahue regimes, we see developing a activist mobilization version of the postwar service model union. But the decisions are still handed down from the top; planning still eminates from the center; strategies are still conceived from on high. What has changed is that members are now being mobilized in support of those decisions, but they are not making them. Democratic unionism must be more than this. It must give union members real ownership of their organizations (and with ownership, the challenge and responsibilities for the fate of the organization). Members must become cocreators with leadership and staff in charting the course, determining the priorities, setting the objectives, as well as executing the plans for their achievement. That is missing from most unions. Most continue to treat members as consumers of a service (collective bargaining and representation) for a fee called dues. Here too, no amount of technology can create a democratic relationship between the members and their organization. It can facilitate the exercise of democracy, but there must be a determination to have democracy for that to occur. The secret to reversing labor's sagging fortunes, and to offer a positive response to your second question about whether the changes being wrought are sufficient, is to restore the U.S. labor movement to its role as a progressive social movement which serves and reflects the interests of the entire working class, not only its members. But that can only happen with its members are fully franchised within it. When that occurs, I have every confidence that organized labor will be able to break the "million new members per year" barrier and begin to grow once again. Let us recall that the CIO was not built merely because John L. Lewis ordained it. It was created by the active, direct participation and effective leadership from below of tens of thousands of workers who built their unions from the bottom up. That is what gave the movement its vibrancy, potency, and power. Warm regards and solidarity, Michael From cxhaha@mail.wm.edu Fri May 30 11:11:39 1997 Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 13:11:08 -0400 (EDT) From: hahamovitch cindy x Subject: Re: Union Cities and Union Summer To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu In-Reply-To: Can anyone tell me about the AFL-CIO's Union Cities idea? I understand that Richmond is a "union city," but the only information I can glean is a page off the AFL-CIO's website. I also have a graduate student who is going to participate in Union Summer, but she needs to get to New Orleans. The Union Summer program provides no travel support. Does anyone know of any funds she could apply for or of anyone driving from Virginia to New Orleans in June. Teamsters, where are you? Cindy Hahamovitch From meisenscher@igc.apc.org Sat May 31 00:15:11 1997 Fri, 30 May 1997 23:13:17 -0700 (PDT) Fri, 30 May 1997 23:12:47 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 23:12:47 -0700 (PDT) To: pen-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu, labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu, h-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, united@cougar.com, OIFAC@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: UK:TUC MOVES INTO ENERGY MARKET [UIS] Sender: meisenscher@igc.org In the U.S. the AFL-CIO offers its affiliates' members credit cards. A fraction of every dollar charged is rebated back to the Federation, providing a guaranteed draw of $75 million per year (I believe that is the figure), which goes to fund many of the expanded activities of the Sweeney Administration. The TUC in Great Britain seems to have upped the ante. So, do you think the TUC gets a kickback on every kilowatt for which its members will be billed? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UNION INFORMATION SERVICE NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE UNION MOVEMENT SEE FOOTER FOR SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS editor@uis.poptel.org.uk PROVIDED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH POPTEL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The TUC is launching a marketing subsidiary to provide low cost gas and electricity for union members through partnerships with supply companies. The move is designed to take advantage of next April's liberalisation of the energy market. The new body - Union Energy Ltd - is already negotiating with 17 energy companies and hopes to obtain tenders with three of them by the end of June. The deals could means cuts in gas bills of up to 20% and 10% for electricity for union members. Union Energy aims to "Harness the purchasing power and loyalty of its union membership in the energy market." Union members account for 4.6m of the UK's 23m households with annual bills running to an estimated 2bn. Financial Times 22.5.97 The Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- For information send e mail to editor@uis.poptel.org.uk with subject line of "Info Request" and your "e mail address "then "firstname lastname "in the body of the message A Volunteer based service provided in conjunction with Poptel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- From pkraft@binghamton.edu Sat May 31 07:16:36 1997 Received: from bingsun3.cc.binghamton.edu (bingsun3.cc.binghamton.edu [128.226.1.6]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA10282 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 07:16:34 -0600 (MDT) Received: from localhost (pkraft@localhost) by bingsun3.cc.binghamton.edu (8.8.3/8.6.9) with SMTP id JAA18772 for ; Sat, 31 May 1997 09:18:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 09:18:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Philip Kraft X-Sender: pkraft@bingsun3 To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Preliminary Conference Announcement and Call for Papers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII All, Twenty years ago a group of graduate students and young faculty at Binghamton organized a conference on the labor process, inspired by Harry Braverman's _Labor and Monopoly Capital_. That gathering had a lasting impact on the way many of us came to understand work and class. Now a new group of graduate students and faculty is organizing a twenty-years-after conference on May 8-10, 1998. We want to reassess, to link research and activism and to more directly address issues of race and gender. The earliest word of our plans brought commitments from researchers like David Noble and Michael Burawoy, and from scholar-activists like Elaine Bernard of the Harvard Trade Union Program and Edna Bonacich of UNITE's Guess? campaign. Other researchers and activists from the UK, Canada, and Japan have also agreed to come. And we haven't yet formally announced the conference. After a long dry spell, our students again are responding to issues of workplace fairness, of class polarization, globalization and the degradation of work. They are open to reason, persuasion, humor. We expect this conference, like the first, to make a lasting difference. The Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers follows. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact Chuck Koeber or me. Apologies for multiple postings. Phil Philip Kraft Co-Director, Graduate Studies Department of Sociology SUNY-Binghamton Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 pkraft@binghamton.edu (607) 777-2585 (607) 777-4197 (fax) PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS _Work, Difference and Social Change_ New Perspectives on Work and Workers Two Decades after Braverman's _Labor and Monopoly Capital_ State University of New York at Binghamton May 8-10, 1998 _Work, Difference and Social Change_ will discuss the nature of work and the experience of workers in the context of political and technological change. Binghamton's _New Directions in the Labor Process_ conference, held in May, 1978, focused on debates in labor process theory inspired by the publication of Harry Braverman's _Labor and Monopoly Capital_. That conference helped define the research agenda of a generation. We expect this 20th Anniversary Conference to do the same. We will examine the relationship between class, gender, race and the organization of production. We will explore the challenges and possibilities which confront labor as a social movement in a global economy. Academics and activists are invited to join with Elaine Bernard, Edna Bonacich*, Michael Burawoy*, Muto Ichiyo, David Noble*, Bryan Palmer*, James Rinehart*, Richard Sharpe, Sid Shniad, David Stark*, Erik Olin Wright* and others as we bridge research and day-to-day work experience. *(_New Directions in the Labor Process_ Panelist) Conference Topics: * Work, Work Space and Work Time * Case Studies in the Mobility of Labor and Capital * Gendered Labor: Linking Production, Reproduction and Households * Race, Class and Work: Racialization in the Context of Class Struggle * Organized Resistance and Everyday Struggles * Environmental Justice: Ecology, Labor and Politics * Work, Labor Process and Social Change Call for Papers: We encourage submission of papers which explore work and workplace through the prisms of class, gender and race. All papers will be refereed. Accepted papers will be published in the Conference _Proceedings_. Please limit papers to thirty double-spaced pages. We also encourage authors to submit papers in ASCII on MS-DOS formatted diskettes. Send three copies of your paper to: Conference Committee Department of Sociology SUNY-Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 USA Deadline for Submission: December 1, 1997 Lodging and Meals: The cost of registration covers a reception Friday evening and snacks and lunches on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night dinner is available for $15. A block of rooms has been reserved at Hojo Inn, Holiday Inn and Residence Inn. All are in Vestal, New York, within one mile of the campus. Please call the hotels directly and request the discounted conference rate. HoJo Inn by Howard Johnson 3601 Vestal Parkway East (607) 729-6181 Holiday Inn SUNY Vestal Parkway East (607) 729-6371 Residence Inn by Marriott 4610 Vestal Parkway East (607) 770-8500 Transportation: Binghamton, located on the intersection of I-81, I-88 and NYS 17, is served by Continental, Northwest, US Airways, United Airlines, and the Shortline and Greyhound bus companies. Childcare and Special Needs: please call or write for details. Registration Fees: Before March 1, 1998 After March 1, 1998 Regular (includes Proceedings, $35 $45 lunches) Student/low income (includes $15 $20 lunches) Saturday Dinner $15 $15 For More Information: Contact Chuck Koeber at (607) 786-9869 or work@binghamton.edu Watch for our Web Page! PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS