How Many More Times? Democrats Side with Bosses Over Rail Workers!

Enough 14

Statement of Vermont AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen:

• Democratic Party Fucks Over Rail Workers!
• Rail Workers To Receive ZERO Paid Sick Days!
• Rail’s Right To Strike Outlawed For This Contract Cycle!

 

U.S. Rail Unions went into this bargaining season with not a single day of paid sick leave in their Contract. Achieving paid sick leave was the top priority of Union members. And today, because of an act of Congress and because of the latest Democratic Party betrayal (the latest in a long line of betrayals), they still have no sick leave.

Every Union member and working class man and woman and child in the United States of America should be livid right now. President Joe Biden (a Democrat), the Democratic Party leadership in the House and Senate, and the vast majority of Democratic (& Republican) Party politicians in the Capital just fucked over Rail workers and sided with the billionaire bosses again. The Rail corporations, after years of record profits, shall not be required to pay workers if they have to miss a day of work due to illness. This is bullshit.

No matter how the Democratic Party apologists try to spin it, Congress had the power to grant Unionized Rail workers paid sick leave, willfully chose to not do so, and then imposed a contract which was voted DOWN by the rank & file of four Unions representing a majority of Rail workers in this country. The Democrats in the House chose to send TWO bills to the Senate (instead of tying the sick leave to the TA), and it was the Democrats again in the Senate who REFUSED to abolish the filibuster (which takes a simple majority) and instead agreed to a 60 vote threshold to pass the sick leave bill. And even after the sick leave bill failed to get the 60 votes, the great majority Democrats still voted to impose the TA. And in so doing, Congress also effectively outlawed strike activity in the Rail sector for this contract cycle. Thus the betrayal of Labor falls on the Democrats.

This is a huge win for the billionaire railroad owners, CEOs, investors, and the capitalist ruling class of the USA. And given that the two major political parties on the national stage are both firmly supported by the elite (and side with the elite at every crucial juncture), this was also a predictable outcome from the start (as was the failure of the Democrats to pass the PRO Act last year). As sad and sickening as this may be, it is a truth we must reckon with.

The national Democratic Party is NOT the friend of Labor. They are a capitalist party organized to represent the interests of the bosses. And even while they lack degrees of evil exhibited by the increasingly fascist Republican Party, we must not be so confused as to think them allies. They, like the Republicans, are a force we must struggle against (not within). If our collective aspirations as a Labor Movement is to see an empowerment of working people, these are realities we must come to grips with.

So long as the two major national parties are the Democrats (big capitalists) and the Republicans (capitalists with a fascist trajectory), we would be wise to soberly understand that the true power of workers will never be realized through supporting the better of two bad candidates in an election or spending tens of millions of dollars of PAC money to prop up a party which does not support us.

No, my friends, our true power can only be found in our labor, through our solidarity, in the factories, on the job sites, in our shops, in our communities, and by way of those actions we collectively choose to take outside bounds of the preferred limits of engagement set forth by the rigged system created by our class enemies. President Joe Biden is NOT pro-Union (even if he displays less visceral hatred of us than did Donald Trump). Congress is not pro-Union. And neither party will do the right thing unless and until they fear us.

So, let us channel our anger and put our focus and attention towards the hard task of organizing, let us be unafraid to call out and name our enemies, and let us build our Labor Movement into a force which puts the Fear of God into the hearts of those who would side with billionaires and millionaires over the people. And should the Rail Unions and their members choose to withhold their labor (act of Congress be damned), let us stand side by side with them as Brothers and Sisters, come what may, until victory, unbowed!

David Van Deusen

President of The Vermont AFL-CIO

‘We have been silenced’: meet the sex worker coalition fighting the cost of living crisis

gal-dem

Juno Mac

The cost of living crisis has hit millions of people hard, with latest reports indicating that 8 million in the UK are struggling to pay their bills, and food prices reaching the highest they’ve been in 40 years. Amid this dire economic climate, the experiences of sex workers have been largely overlooked – but a new campaign aims to change that.

The Hookers Against Hardship campaign comes from a coalition of sex worker collectives across the UK, demanding government action and public support to tackle poverty among sex workers during the current cost of living crisis. Made up of Britain’s major sex worker-led organisations – including SWARM, the English Collective of Prostitutes, Scot-pep, United Sex Workers, Bristol Sex Workers’ Collective and Decrim Now – the campaign draws attention to the ways sex workers are being affected by the crisis, and situates their demands within

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REBUTTAL TO BT GROUP’S CLAIMS – CWU INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE

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‘Don’t Pay’ or ‘Enough is Enough’: The role of workers’ vanguards in the current moment – Lessons to learn from GKN workers in Italy and others

Angry Workers

There are moments when a particular group of workers can become the political focus for the wider working class. They can act as a pole of attraction, they can become a conduit for a wider program and new forms of struggle.

The current wave of strikes in Britain shows that significant sections of the working class feel both the need and ability to defend their own interests. It has come at a point in the deepening crisis where the mainstream political establishment is unable to present meaningful state-driven solutions.

In desperation, the controlling Tory party has ditched Johnson and created several months of vacuum where they don’t even pretend to generate plans to ease hardships. That convulsion in the governing party is not unique to Britain. Unable to respond to crisis and pacify the population, governments elsewhere in Western Europe have also dissolved. In France, Macron’s party have lost control of the National Assembly and, in Italy, Draghi’s coalition government has collapsed.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the British Labour Party has been intent on showing themselves as the next Government to prop up the capitalist status quo in Britain. They are so keen to prove that point that, week in, week out, they have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from struggling workers.

While the absence of a plan is lamented by the reformists, we think it opens up an opportunity to strengthen the chance for workers’ struggles to progress from singular defensive battles to a wider political program for the working class.

Things are churning

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Met police apologies and pays compensation for arrest of union official on picket line

UNITED VOICES OF THE WORLD

• The Metropolitan Police (Met) has apologised to a United Voices of the World (UVW) official for his arrest, settled a claim brought by UVW, and paid compensation to both the union and its member worth a total £5,000
• The Met apologised and paid £3,000 in compensation to former head of UVW’s legal department Franck Magennis for “the way you were treated when you were arrested, put in handcuffs and searched” on a picket line in January 2020
• The police also settled a legal claim brought by UVW before it reached the courts, and agreed to pay the union £2,000. The union claimed the Met had violated articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights when it broke its picket outside St George’s University Hospital

The Met issued a written apology and paid £3,000 in compensation to Franck Magennis, a barrister at Garden Court chambers and former head of UVW’s legal department, for arresting him while on a picket line outside the St George’s University Hospital in south London on January 13 2020. The police turned up in large numbers, distributed leaflets on behalf of the university to dispel the lawful picket and threatened the workers and union officials with arrest unless they left the campus. They detained and handcuffed Magennis when he enquired about the legal basis for the warning.

In the apology, signed by Inspector Andy O’Donnell of the Directorate of Professional Standards Civil Actions & Inquests, the Met apologised to Magennis, for

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Angryworkers

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In times like these…

• Where a global crisis is once again followed by the threat of global war
• Where inflation is attack on our wages world-wide, while also so-called left governments from Germany to Spain to the USA agree to spend billions extra on rearmament
• Where the ruling class tries to deepen the division within our class, e.g. in form of deportations to Rwanda or other scapegoating actions
• Where the introduction of automation and technology doesn’t lead to a better life for everyone, but an increase of unemployment and pressure on wages

We have to be ready to break the cage of the law by…

• organising strikes in stronger sectors in solidarity with workers’ struggles in weaker sectors
• resisting job cuts and company closures if necessary through occupations
• fighting by all means necessary against overtime and work stress while others have trouble finding a job
• squatting empty flats and houses in response to increasing homelessness
  refusing that people of our class go hungry or cold if necessary by defying energy bills
• physically opposing migration raids, deportations, evictions or arrests at picket-lines

We have to prepare ourselves for this. We have to stop acting like victims. The competition between trade unions and their fear to defy the law make them only a limited weapon in our struggle. Most organisations want to proclaim victories and therefore don’t allow us to learn from the strong and weak points of our strikes and struggles. We have to learn to speak for ourselves.

During the pandemic we have seen that workers in the so-called ‘essential sectors – transport, health, food – would well be able to run society in a better, more equal and less destructive way. We will have to take on this responsibility and wrest the means of production from the abyss of their system of profits and power.

Here in Bristol, like elsewhere, we have to find each other. Some of us work at Southmead hospital, others in local schools. We run a solidarity network in Avonmouth industrial and logistics area.

angryworkersworld@gmail.com / angryworkers.org

On strike in Sheffield!

LabourStart UK

Food couriers employed by gig-economy firm Stuart will be striking in Sheffield, UK, from 6 December. These couriers, who are spuriously “self-employed” and serve takeaway giant JustEat, are being slapped with a 24% cut in their per-delivery base rate.

Stuart claims that the base-rate cut is made up for by a new distance-based bonus. But in fact the changes simply mean that drivers will have to go further and faster to earn the same money. It’s a pay cut and a recipe for risk on the roads.

Food couriers will demonstrate at Sheffield Town Hall at 12 noon on Sunday 28 November and then move to indefinite strike action from 6 December, shutting down deliveries from McDonald’s and expanding to take on other chains.

The couriers’ union, the IWGB, is a small, young union, and it needs help to build up its strike fund!

Please donate here.

Demonstration on 28 November (facebook event)

Bristol CEX solidarity pickets.

Bristol Solidarity Federation have picketed electrical goods retailer CEX in solidarity with their workers in Barcelona who have suffered bullying, dismissal and unfair disciplinary measures.

Multinational CEX may be known to you a seller of video games but it also becoming known as terrible exploiter of worker’s rights. One serious concern is how a CNT-AIT member has been not allowed a reduction of hours even the care for a child, actions will continue until their demands are met.

Solidarity Federation is the British section of the International Workers’ Association (IWA-AIT)

An injury to one is an injury to all.

Help support IWW vs Golders Green College!

gofundme

V has worked at Oxford Colleges International for over 17 years. She has trained most of her colleagues in teaching english as a second languge, and has written a number of revision resources and workbooks for students.

At the end of September, she was informed that at the beginning of next month she would be transferred to a new contract with reduced hours and pay. Her employer has repeatedly refused a consultation meeting with union representation present, and she has been forced to work under protest, on a contract she cannot afford to live on, being denied redundancy pay or proper payment for the 16 days of untaken holiday she had accurred.

We are now taking this case to employment tribunal on the following grounds:

• Illegally changing contract and employer without consultation, amounting to an unfair dismissal without redundancy pay.
• Illegally refusing a grievance complaint meeting with union representation present.
• Repeated failures to send pay over the past year, forcing V to accrue overdraft fees and causing significant financial distress.

While this case goes to employment tribunal, we are looking for funds to support V financially. Direct donations are welcome, or you can buy any one of the learning resources and colouring books on V’s etsy store , each of which will come with a signed thank you note from her.

Thank you for your support

V, and the TEFL Workers’ Union

National Labour Relations Board Rules in Favour of Voodoo Doughnuts Workers

IWW-NARA

On October 6, 2021 NLRB found merit in and are reaching a settlement to bring back Voodoo Doughnut staff who were fired during a strike in June of 2021

Portland, OR — On October 6th, 2021, Doughnut Workers United-IWW (DWU) received word from the National Labor Relations Board that 7 of the 9 striking workers who were terminated will have their jobs reinstated with back pay upon the conclusion of our most recent Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge against Voodoo Doughnut. DWU was informed that two ULPs have settled in the union’s favour. These ULPs include charges concerning topics of managerial surveillance, the posting of union information in communal work spaces, workers entering the building off the clock, as well as the recall of seven of the nine terminated workers who were fired for going on a health and safety strike around the growing concerns of temperatures inside the restaurant, knowingly in direct violation of the national labor law.

In June of 2021, twelve workers went on strike due to

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