You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Thursday June 25, 1903
San Francisco, California - Strike of Linemen Goes General on West Coast
Two hundred San Francisco linemen joined the strike yesterday against the Pacific States Telegraph and Telephone Company. This brings the total of strikers to about 1500 from the Canadian border to the border with Mexico. Only the men in Seattle and Spokane, where agreements have been reached, remain at work. The men in Los Angeles have been on strike for seven weeks. The inability to reach an agreement there has led to this general strike.
The Executive Committee of the Western Conference called for a general strike on the West Coast in order to equalize wages and conditions. Executive Committee member, F.A. Holden made this statement:
The union is thoroughly organized. Pickets have been provided in every town. They will preserve the peace and strive to avert any attempts at overt acts, or the tampering with a public utility. We are still ready to arbitrate and the executive committee of the Western Conference is in attendance at our headquarters ready to listen to any reasonable proposition.
SOURCE
San Francisco Chronicle
-of June 24, 1903
Wednesday June 25, 1913
New York City, New York - The Pageant Now Showing Loss of $1,996.45
Mabel Dodge in her Salon
Where the idea for the
Pageant was born.
Frederick Sumner Boyd, chairman of the Silk Strikers' Executive Committee, met yesterday with Miss Jessie Ashley, Treasure of the Entertainment Committee. Others on that committee were also in attendance. Miss Ashley is a lawyer, a member of the Socialist Party, and an IWW member.
A table of receipts and expenditures was prepared in Miss Ashley's office. Adolph Lessig is here from Paterson and will bring this table back to the strikers in order to explain the loss.
Mr Boyd states that, except for selling a few tickets, Big Bill Haywood, Jack Reed, and Miss Mabel Dodge had nothing to do with handling the money. Mrs. Florence Wise of the Women's Trade Union League did take over as first treasure of the pageant during the time that Miss Ashley was tied up with other duties.
The large turnout for the Pageant had raised hopes that the strikers' relief fund could be replenished. However, many seats were sold at a discount and several thousands strikers who showed their IWW cards at the door were admitted free.
The $348 turned into the relief fund, earlier identified as coming from the Pageant, was actually from some other, unidentified donation.
SOURCE
The New York Times
-of June 25, 1913
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Tuesday June 25, 2013
From Labor Notes: "Fast Food Strikes: What's Cooking?"
This article by Jenny Brown discusses the use of strikes by Service Employees International Union as an organizing tactic:
After years of downplaying strikes, the union that’s funding fast food organizing is now embracing the tactic. The Service Employees have underwritten short strikes by fast food workers in seven cities in the last two months—including the largest, in Detroit, where 400 workers walked out of dozens of restaurants and completely shut down three.
Fast food is an unlikely union target, due to high workforce turnover and layered franchise ownership. And the path forward is uncertain, say organizers. The only thing that seems sure is that typical union elections won’t work...
WAGE THEFT
“Whenever they want to keep labor costs down,” managers make workers clock out and continue cleaning the restaurant or stocking, said Kasseen Silver, who works for Burger King in Harlem. “It’s hard, knowing how many hours you worked that week and your paycheck doesn’t show it.”
HUMILIATION
Humiliation often comes with the job. Jimmy John’s striker Rasheen Aldridge in St. Louis said that after lunch rush one day, his boss handed him a sign saying “I made three wrong sandwiches today,” then snapped a picture. And by “wrong,” his boss meant he’d added turkey and roast beef to the sandwich in the wrong sequence.
Clearly these Fellow Workers need organizing. This is a long article, but well worth the read for the discussion of new and innovative organizing tactics.
Read full article here:
http://www.labornotes.org/...
Service Employees International Union
http://www.seiu.org/
New York Communities for Change
http://www.nycommunities.org/
Jobs with Justice
http://www.jwj.org/
FightFor15/Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago
http://fightfor15.org/...
"We have fed you all for a thousand years, and you hail us still unfed."
We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years
by an Unknown Proletarian, sung by Jack Herranen and the Lower 9th Ward