Bakers not Delighted!

http://bakersdelightcampaign.wordpress.com

UNITE organiser Mel Gregson recently spoke to Diana Beaumont from 3CR’s Stick Together about the campaign for decent wages and conditions for Bakers Delight workers.

Fair Work Australia rejects Bakers Delight Agreement After a months long process, Fair Work Australia has finally refused to approve a Bakers Delight Enterprise Agreement. The agreement would have covered the Diamond Creek, St Helena and Laurimar stores in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

read more

Today, I came across a blog for the first time, and wanted to share the first post I read from it. There is an effective use of analogy to comment on some key issues for activists and society to reflect on. [I have not included embedded video, links or footnotes]

when we fight we let them win
http://vegina.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/when-we-fight-we-let-them-win/

“Fox pens” are outdoor enclosures that imprison foxes and coyotes, originally captured with leg hold traps, for the sake of hunters training dogs by setting a pack of dogs on one coyote or fox. Hunters often bet on whether the pack of dogs will catch (and maybe kill) the coyote. The practice is much more cruel than I just described and you can learn more about it here. The vile and cruel nature of this practice is obvious, so I am going to skip that part. (And if you don’t see why this is cruel you are clearly too far-gone to help at this point).

Outside of the torture implicit in this practice, a part of this practice that is resonating with me is the way that humans pit one nonhuman animal against another. Humans inflict cruelty on one animal by trapping and then imprisoning him or her. They inflict cruelty on others by training the good nature out of them and aggressiveness into them (most likely through deprivation of food and physical affection and/or by inflicting physical abuse). Then for entertainment, the human abuser watches as the latter torments and often viciously kills the former. The same sort of process occurs with dog fighting and cock fighting.

Looking beyond the pain and torture involved, this also strikes me as perverse because the human perpetrators get nonhuman animal victims to abuse each other. This makes their work of animal abuse easier on them. They don’t have to feel culpable or psychotic when they don’t physically commit the act of torture or murder in its most vile moments, as the coyote or fox is being hunted or torn to shreds. By having one animal do it to the other, these sadists get away with murder, without ever getting their own hands dirty.

This is the same sort of logic that makes all oppression and subjugation successful. Those in power maintain their power by getting those without power to turn on each other. The oppressed are so busy fighting each other they forget to look up and see the real villain. Social justice movements often work against each other; they see a limited pool of resources (membership, volunteers, donations, media attention) and begin to feel as if they need to fight against other social movement organizations to get these resources.[1] Animal rights activists are used to this; we often have activists for human justice movements argue that we need to take care of women’s rights or racism or “starving children in Africa” before we take care of nonhuman animals. As a feminist who begs for vegan events and a vegan who wishes that we could make our point without turning to sexist hooks, I have had enough with this intra-movement conflict.

I have had enough with inter-movement conflict as well. I see this process, where the oppressor gets the oppressed to turn on each other, replicated in the very movement that is supposed to help the foxes and coyotes and dogs in the fox pens. On multiple occasions I have experienced activists blaming each other for being falsely arrested during protests, when the police are the only ones who should be blamed. I have heard of groups taking credit for the activist activities of other organizations, fund raising events carelessly planned on the same day and distracting fights then ensuing when the double booking was unintentional. This all gets topped off with interpersonal friendship and dating drama. This is all is tolerable at the potlucks but not in organizational meetings or at protest events.

When we think of fox pens we can see the real villain is the human that supports and pays for it to happen. We do not look at the dogs and blame them for being vicious, we know the hunters did that. We do not look at the coyotes or foxes being attacked and think they should fight harder, we know it is the hunters’ fault they are attacked. We can see the big picture in regard to the fox pens. We need to see the big picture when it comes to our movement as well. And unlike the foxes and the coyotes and the dogs in fox pens who were forced into these positions, we do have a choice and it is our own fault. Until we stop letting those that maintain the institutions that oppress and dominate pull the strings, we will never have enough momentum or strength or focus to end fox pens or any other injustice.

Every time we deny that other social movement struggles are important, or try to rank order importance, we defeat ourselves. If we don’t leave room for all oppression to matter, we accept that compassion has limits. But the premise of the animal rights movement is that love and compassion is limitless. Every time we fight each other, we solidify the labels and boundaries that define our oppressions. But an important teaching of feminism is that the boundaries established by those in power exist only so that they can maintain power. When we turn on each other and fight we waste time and we get weaker, all the while doing nothing to weaken those who oppress us. If we turn to each other in solidarity and act together against oppressions, we will have a much better chance of defeating this system, or at least at making fox pens illegal.

GurgaonWorkersNews - Newsletter 29 (August 2010)

(Full version: www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com)

Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development.

At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon.

Thousands of young proletarianised middle class people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam.

read more

Yesterday was an interesting day for me. I spent most of it outside in the heat of a very hot day, which took a toll. This compounded a far from as fruitful search as wanted that I had embarked on. Repeated misrepresentations, seemingly deliberate purveyance of misinformation, and the frustration that ensued made for a challenging day. I returned to St Kitts that evening—a place I had only known for the last couple weeks—and experienced what I can only describe as a somewhat surprising sense of relief. The moment, in itself, picked up my spirits, though it was what came to follow soon after that I found worth reflecting on.

In needing to debrief myself, to take stock of the days events, I picked a place I had a little familiarity with. It was somewhere I could sit for a while, and reflect, mull over what choices I had and what actions were available to me. Whilst reflecting, I noted someone riding passing by on their bike. They were not the first to go past, and not the last, whilst I was there. In that moment, it was the the normality of it that stood out. People riding their bikes, being and feeling free and safe enough to ride their bikes (the class privilege of this was not in my mind at that moment)—the joy of it, normality, struck a chord.

A short time later in walking, I was passed by someone cruising the streets on a longboard. They were clearly enjoying themselves. As they went past, I had my first real thoughts of surfing since I left Oz. It was the fluidity of motion, the simple pleasures. Their tranquillity in effort and effortlessness. My recollections of surfing were not in any way a missing of it, rather an awareness of the spatiality of it, the connectedness and sense of place that floating amongst the waves, gliding through a bottom turn. Simple pleasures.

In these thoughts, these recollections, of an act than is very much individual, though often collective in its separateness, it is a little paradoxical that I began to reflect on the importance of relationships. Some of the most simple yet prudent advice I have been given was shared with me on an occasion similar to this, some years back. I had similarly embarked on an adventure, living in an unfamiliar place far removed from my networks and circles of friends. Relationships are central to happiness, to being happy.

Perhaps this is why I felt the relief on returning to St Kitts. In my short time here, I have met some pretty inspirational and good-hearted people. People who are engaged in worthwhile issues. Just knowing they exist seems to be enough, in my current stage of liminality, to make my days much more enjoyable...

There is so much to write about, that I have not managed to put something together... I have decided to include someone else's reflections on the last weeks G20 protests in Toronto, as a prelude:

Cop Car Burned! All Criticisms of Global Capitalism Rendered Moot!
http://propagandhi.com/2010/06/959/

i don’t endorse violence. i don’t think it’s the ideal way forward to a better society. i think all sane people would agree. heck, i don’t even endorse vandalism in the “service” of social change. i’m conservative that way. but the disproportionate reaction (to the disproportionate mainstream media coverage) to the image of a burning car and some broken windows at the G20 summit in toronto needs to be put into perspective.

i won’t bother with the obvious comparative study of the isolated “violence” of a handful of protestors versus the overwhelming violence practiced day in and day out at the expense of millions upon millions of human lives by national states the world over in order to secure their geopolitical interests. too easy. too obvious. too fundamental.

i will however, point out that unless you’ve been in the situation of being a direct, physical and psychological target of overwhelming and belligerent street-level force FUNDED BY YOUR OWN TAX DOLLARS, it can be hard to understand the frustration and rage that can build over the course of an afternoon let alone over the course of a lifetime.

hell, you don’t even have to have experienced it directly. just sitting on our couches in our homes, cursing the stinking system, we all know that the state has a monopoly on ultimate violence and total control. otherwise it wouldn’t exist as it does, right? things would be different, cause we would have gotten up off our couches and changed it if we were operating on a level playing field. but their is no level playing field between the state and its subjects. citizens plainly have insufficient institutional power to derail the sociopathic behaviour of the prevailing order. frustration and rage is the predictable result.

that frustration and rage is exacerbated when you’re pitted face to face against a wall of riot cops who are alternately corralling and intentionally provoking your otherwise peaceful demonstration into a corner, firing rubber bullets at you, detaining and searching you with no cause, hitting you with batons, singling out and abducting organizers, impersonating protesters, firing gas canisters intentionally at head level, exploding sound grenades by your ears, permanently damaging your body with exposure to chemical bombs (all based on personal experience by the way) and then having it all portrayed in the media as if it were YOU that needs to be restrained and punished rather than the megalomaniacs on the other side of the fence that continue to plunder and pillage the planet at these obnoxious publicly-funded private-parties of the global elite.

in these situations, there is only so much futility a person can take before their rage can get the best of them and a burning cop car or a smashed bank window starts to look pretty appealing. yes, these are futile acts, but what do we expect people to do when they are treated like shit and the justice system does nothing to intervene on their behalf?

sure, ideally we could all rise above it and aim for a perfect, superhuman state of restraint. sure. and yes, ideally i too would prefer the demonstrations were strictly peaceful (for strategic reasons mainly) and that other, more polarizing means of demonstration and protest and disruption occurred outside of these public gatherings (where they would be more effective).

but the people who manage the security state won’t let that happen anyways. they WANT violence. they provoke it. why? it justifies their absurd budgets. it lets them test and refine (and demonstrate to the rest of the population) their methods of population control in a managed setting, preparing for the day that the shit really hits the fan and the police state finally gets to give up any pretense of democracy. why else would they have the summit in fucking downtown toronto, where spirited protest was absolutely certain to occur, rather than on some cruise-ship in the atlantic where it could all be completely avoided? these are essentially war-games being staged on our nickel. and we, the people, are the enemy.

so let’s just try to keep things in perspective when corporate media habitually fails to hold concentrations of global power to any sliver of account and instead chooses to replay footage of a stupid burning cop car on a loop for hours on end as their marquee story.

there are plenty of examples of independent video footage of cops provoking and mistreating people at the G20 summit surfacing on the net. do yourself a favour and check them out and ask yourself how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of it. or if it were a member of your family.

that’s all i got to say.

Posted by Jesus H. Chris on June 27th, 2010
http://propagandhi.com/2010/06/959/

http://minimumsecurity.net/blog/2010/06/23/the-math-of-resistance/

June 23rd, 2010 On Monday, a small group went inside the BP command center in New Orleans to confront those responsible for the spill.

http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/blog/Gulf-Oil-Spill-Unified-Command-Center-Protest?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MobileBroadcastNews+(Mobile+Broadcast+News)

This protest was symbolic; a small number of people couldn’t really disrupt the activities of BP. Imagine, though, if they had a few hundred angry and determined people. Then they could have shut that place down.

Small numbers + confrontation = symbolic (with potential for effectiveness)

* * *

Hundreds or thousands of people will hold hands on beaches worldwide this weekend, protesting the catastrophe in the Gulf and demanding an end to offshore drilling.

http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/

read more

Thoughts on the Successful Picketing of the Israeli Zin Line Ship, Oakland, California Sunday, June 20, 2010

History was made Today.

Met together to flame the spark

struck by the Gaza Flotilla.

800 of us.

Long day to me. Up ready at a.m. 4:30

Copwatch Security crew swept into office gearing up.

Last minute hustling for rides to docks.

Wobbly universal-labeled drum carried by Copwatch car.

Down empty streets, past committed comrades stringing out along the road hiking Bart to the dock at Berth 58.

Dropped off across tracks from closest gate a

nd walked across to growing clustered pickets.

Sorting out.

Fellow workers Bruce and Donna

flying red/black flag.

Picket sign.

First forty formed a line at first gate.

Took back copwatch wobbly drum.

Drum beat

march to main gate,

numbers growing.

Wobbly Banner strung across wire fence

fellow workers down from Reno.

Fellow Workers with Security,

Steve and John waving wobbly flag.

6 am line swelled to hundreds.

read more

Having relocated to a new place, leaving my established networks and circles behind, has fostered some reflection — amongst the personal challenges that arise from uncertainties. I am noting two very distinct and contrasting emotions: being very excited about what may come — which dominated prior to the move, and feeling quite daunted by it all. The latter currently overshadows the former, though the former does shine through at times. I have experienced similar circumstances in the past, though seemingly find myself struggling/unprepared this time (again?).

A key basis for feeling daunted is the uncertainty. This is directly linked to being way outside of my comfort zone. I am most certain that there is good to come, and much good in time. This is why I made the decision to relocate, to embrace the opportunity placed in front of me.

It is the present, being very much present in the here and now, that overly shapes my experiences. The physical move away from the diverse and strong circles and networks that I could be fallen back on, even draw from in simple ways — their existence often being enough in itself — is most profound. I can not just visit someone, or drop by a common space expecting to note some familiarity. Draw from spatial comfort and sense of place.

I am very aware that new networks will emerge, that I need to work on creating the potential for these. It is the void that exists between this point in the near future and the here and now that is quite challenging.

My current experiences also illustrate how even one event, the actions of a single person (or more), can make such a huge difference on feelings of uncertainty and the dautingness [yes, I believe I did make this word up] of it all. This provides much relief, yet is also has a tendency, at times, to reinforce feelings of uncertainty. Concerns about the pressure this can place on who/those this emanates from, alongside the loss of this support, come to the surface at times. It is almost like a Pandora’s box. Really wanting to have this support, though having some uncertainties about drawing too much from it and potentially losing it through too much expectation or pressure on them — even just losing aspects of it. This is challenging in itself.

These uncertainties aside, and they can and are pushed aside at times — and hopefully more every day, I have already noted the roots of potential and exciting prospects. I have already had exposure to many good things, and see many more interlinked with these. I have noted people doing and being prepared to do amazing things. In as much as I my move was to a location culturally very similar, and I find myself seeking connection with very similar networks to those I previously had, it is comforting to see this. I try not place expectation that I will find these. Perhaps is that I do not want to not find them. Rather, is it that I find expectations not being met as much harder to come to terms with than not having the expectations in the first place? Maybe this is borne out of my experiences, my socialisations, of experiencing life?

All this said and done, even though this may be far from my dominant feelings since the relocation, I still think that being pushed outside our comfort zones is a good thing. In hindsight — some time down the track — I foresee that I will look back on this as a time of personal growth and the roots of many wonderful experiences. The challenge for now is to face up to these feelings, these concerns — even fears — and try to embrace the uncertainty. To look past, at times, perceived feelings of being close to personal limits — the proverbial straw, and try and enjoy the moments. To be present and enjoy the real...

Proletarian Photo Story from Kapas Hera:

A New Working Class Dormitory Shanty-Town in Gurgaon, India GurgaonWorkersNews - June 2010

Kapas Hera is one of the biggest new 'working class dwelling clusters' in the Delhi industrial belt. Within the last ten years rent-based mass-accomodations for around 200,000 to 300,000 workers and families emerged out of dusty scrub-land around a minor peasant village. Kapas Hera is where over 100,000 garment export workers eat and sleep or conspire after 12 to 16-hours shifts in neighbouring Udyog Vihar Phase I to IV - one of Delhi's biggest 'planned' industrial areas.

read more

http://www.theage.com.au/national/for-some-workers-the-struggle-will-never-end-20100615-yd9p.html ANDRA JACKSON June 16, 2010

GURINDJI member Peter Inverway grew up hearing his stockman father's tales of once having been paid in rations, never dreaming he might one day know the same indignity. That was until the federal government intervened in Northern Territory indigenous communities three years ago. Mr Inverway, a construction and building worker, helped build the railway between Alice Springs and Darwin in 2002.

Since the intervention, his earnings have gone from a peak of $1200 a week to about $4.80 an hour for him and other Gurindji. He works a 30-hour week, building an arts and crafts centre for Kalkaringi. Every fortnight, Centrelink pays $250 into his bank, his ''choice'' money and $150 is paid into a Basics Card [rations] with kindergarten-style drawings of what it can be spent on - clothes, food, health items and hygiene products. ''We've gone back to when my people were working for rations of tea, flour and a bit of tobacco,'' he said in Melbourne where he was meeting trade union leaders.

read more

Global Day of Remembrance for Foxconn’s Victims 8/6/10

Yan Li, 27, is the latest victim of Foxconn, the manufacturer of iPads and other high-tech items that has experienced a recent rash of worker suicides. He collapsed and died from exhaustion on 27 May after having worked continuously for 34 hours. His wife said Yan had been on the night shift for a month and in that time had worked overtime every night. Yan, an engineer, had worked for Foxconn since April 2007.[1]

The tragedy marks the 11th death at the corporation since January this year. To pay respect to these young lives, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) designates 8 June 2010 as the Global Day of Remembrance for Foxconn’s Victims. Despite pressure from civil society and the media, Foxconn continues to deny that the suicides are related to management methods.

read more

Friday 4th June 2010 Electrical Trades Union Bans Members from Working in Nuclear Industry

http://revitalisinglabour.blogspot.com/2010/06/electrical-trades-union-bans-members.html

The Queensland and Northern Territory Branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) announced on May 31 that its state council had placed a ban on its members’ working in uranium mines, nuclear power plants or any part of the nuclear fuel cycle. The ban reflects both the ETU’s concern regarding the threat to the health and safety to workers engaged in the industry and its view that nuclear power should not be a source of power generation.

In a statement issued on May 21 Peter Simpson, ETU state secretary, said “we are sending a clear message to the industry and the wider community that vested interests in the uranium and nuclear industries are trying to hoodwink us about this dangerous product and industry. Corporate interests, and their political supporters in the Labor and Coalition parties, are also trying to buy working families off with high wages, while denying the true short-term and long-term health risks of such jobs”.

read more

New Zealand: JB Hi-Fi; always cheapest wages

On the 16th of April retail workers at JB Hi-Fi in Wellington, New Zealand, part of a nationwide electronics chain, walked out of their workplace and went on strike to protest their meagre wages. The workers have struck several times since and are now bracing themselves for a bitter struggle against bosses who want them to carry on working long hours for little money. The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement speaks to Shanna Olsen-Reeder, a JB Hi-Fi worker and Unite Union delegate, about her involvement in the industrial action.

Could you briefly explain the present working conditions at JB Hi-Fi?

read more

Rotten apples

As many of you will be aware, the Apple iPad had it world-wide launch this weekend. What you may not know is that the factory which produces it, in China, has been the scene of a dozen worker suicides in recent months. We've been asked by unions and NGOs in Hong Kong and Taiwan to launch a big international campaign to put pressure on the factory owners -- and on Apple -- to probe why this is happening, and to allow workers there to have real, independent unions that can bargain collectively.

Please take a moment to send off your message now:

www.labourstart.org/foxconn

It's been dubbed the "suicide express" by Chinese media. Twelve workers, all between 18 and 24 years old, have committed suicide, at the production facilities of Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwan-owned enterprise based in Shenzhen, southern China.

read more

IWW Education Workers campaigning in defence of public education

Education workers and fellow workers from West Midlands IWW supported the recent call by the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education (which initially met in UC Berkeley).

On March 4, education workers based in Universities across the West Midlands took part in leafleting across the University of Birmingham, raising awareness about the day of action and encouraging other education workers and students to support the initiative. This was followed up the following Saturday by another round of campaigning, heralding the importance of workers and students mobilizing in support of public education.

The IWW education workers targeted the national Education Show, which took place at Birmingham’s National Education Centre, and then moved to Birmingham’s main shopping street, New Street, to raise awareness about the problems facing public education in the region.

read more

I am once again in a position where I will be moving away from friends to start largely a-fresh. In these weeks leading up to my departure, I have found myself appreciating the little things: many specific trees and plants, rock formations and other features of local landscape that I see everyday. I may have seen them everyday, yet I never really noticed them. Wheres sense of place such as these are often dismissed as being the realm of hippies, they ground much deeper in the politics of space, capitalism and the disassociation it both relies on and attempts to create.

Implied in having a sense of place, is have a connection. A connection to the social, political and environmental. Being rooted in community. We are very much happier when we feel part of a community, feel that we belong. Having networks, being a part of a network, adds to both sense of place and community. We become rooted in place socially, and often so much more. This can foster an appreciation of the local environ — whether this is based on ecological values, or an everyday appreciation of function and form.

I have been reflecting on the associations I have with place — the many places that form part of my locale. These are social and environmental. My work environment is quite aesthetic, and a number of animals have moved back in after prior dislocation. The forms and function of the structures are secondary to me, though they act to reinforce the sense of place I have.

In appreciating, feeling a connection to the small things, I recalled a conversation I had with a counsellor many moons ago. I was heavily invested in campaigns seeking to protect forest areas from destruction — areas whilst far from my locale, I had developed an strong association and sense of place. Some of these areas I had visited and immersed myself in, others I appreciated based on their existence — transcending anthropocentric value. I was having difficulty comprehending the destruction imposed by our species, often for little more than notions of development, progress and capital accumulation.

The counsellor advised I ground myself — literally. To go outside and take my shoes of, to stand on the stone and grass and feel it. Whereas this may sound very new age or hippy, it directly contrasts with the dissociation that capitalism requires. By this simple act of bare foot on ground, there is a physical connection. Much the same was as placing your hand on a tree, running some foliage through your fingers — of physically hugging a tree. There is a connection there. Unfortunately some of us are uncomfortable with this. This can be that some of us can appreciate the natural without this direct physical connection, whereas for others, they are so far removed that they cannot see the benefits of such connectedness.

In my reflecting on the local, on the individual trees, plants and landscapes that have formed my peripheral visions for many years — sometimes drawing in my attention, what is clear to me is that we are far too disconnected from the real, the actual, the natural. I think we lose something of ourselves in this. Taking our shoes off and standing in the grass is a simple step towards countering this. As is stopping for a moment to take in what is around us. Slow down. Take stock. Be present.

http://www.mua.org.au/news/miners-and-maritime-workers-back-bougainville-wome/

Miners and maritime workers back Bougainville women at Rio AGM 26 May 2010

A delegation of miners from the Hunter Valley and maritime workers from the Victorian branch joined Bougainville women at the Rio Tinto AGM in Melbourne today, opposing the mining giants attempts to regain a foothold on the island and reopen the Panguna mine and speaking in favour of the government tax on mining.

CFMEU (Mining and Energy) union provided Bougainville women proxies so that could raise their opposition to the reopening of the mine, at the Rio Tinto AGM, today. The mine was the source of a 10 years civil war, economic devastation and 10,000 deaths.

The MUA delegation was led by branch secretary Kevin Bracken and follows a series of protests outside Rio offices in Melbourne during the ILWU miners lockout.

VIDEO - see Rio's Avatar?,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OI921vl1R8

read more

Verboten ist verboten - it is forbidden to forbid (unions) !

the struggle of the FAU Berlin against the ban on calling itself a union is going into the next round.

On June 10th, 2010, Berlin's Higher Regional Court will decide if the Free Workers' Union (FAU) Berlin may once more call itself a union.

Below you'll find some ways in which you can continue to show your solidarity.

Protest notes for the Foreign Ministry and Embassies

We have updated both protest notes on our websites to include references to the court date in June. We continue to ask you to send protest notes to the German Embassy/Consulates in your country and the Foreign Ministry in Germany. Please also call on others to send these protest notes.

The Berlin Regional Court's decision contravenes ILO conventions and the European Social Charter. Each fax or email the German government receives, exposes this blatant attempt to deny the Babylon workers of their basic rights.

read more