Radicals at Work

Beer Wars: Belgian Workers Take on Brewing Giant InBev

For two weeks in January Belgian brewery workers blocked roads, set fire to beer crates, kidnapped managers and handed out free beer as part of their tactics against job cuts proposed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer.Read more.

From Seattle to Detroit: 10 Lessons for Movement Building

For five days in 1999, 80,000 people from Seattle and from all over the country stopped the World Trade Organization from meeting. Despite extreme police and state violence, students, organizers, workers, and community members participated in a public uprising using direct actions, marches, rallies, and mass convergences.Read more.

NYTimes: 8 Arrested in Protest Against Cutbacks at University of California

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Eight people were arrested Saturday after protesters broke windows, lights and planters outside the home of the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.Read more.

University of Illinois Graduate Students Strike, Win

The Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO), IFT/AFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) successfully ended a two-day strike after nearly seven months of negotiations during which the administration refused to sufficiently guarantee tuition waivers.Read more.

UNITE HERE: A bunch of Pinkos?

Is Unite Here using "cultlike tactics" to train their organizers? That's what the New York Times reported two weeks ago in an article on the practice of "pinksheeting" inside the union.Read more.

Update: Philadelphia Strikers and the Media

In Philadelphia, thousands of striking SEPTA transportation workers and members of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 are facing persistent attacks by politicians and the media. NPR’s initial coverage of the strike seemed largely aimed at inciting tension between commuters and the striking workers. It even gave credence to Mayor Michael Nutter’s absurd criticism:

“To decide at midnight or so to go out on strike at 3 a.m. is, I think, the height of insensitivity and disruption to people and their lives.”

Since striking is a fundamental weapon that workers have to defend and advance their interests, Nutter’s comment would be analogous to criticizing the Phillies pitchers for refusing to announce to Yankees batters beforehand, the type of pitches they'd throw during the World Series. That is, a World Series where all the games are played in New York and the umpires are legally employed by the Yankees who begin each game with a 5 run lead.Read more.

Update: French Bossnappers Detained At Chicago Airport

On October 29th, two French workers were detained at Chicago's O'Hare airport, as a part of the French General Confederation of Labor (CGT) struggle against plant closures. The International Metalworkers Federation reports:

The two unionists, who were detained for four hours, were part of a delegation of CGT members who traveled to Chicago to take part in an action at the company's shareholder meeting on October 30.Read more.

Philadelphia Transit Workers Suprise Employers and Politicians By Striking

Early this morning, Philadelphia transit workers struck SEPTA, halting all bus, subway and trolley service.

The workers are in defiance of both the Mayor of Philadelphia and the Governor of Pennsylvania, who have respectively called the strike "outrageous" and "irresponsible".Read more.

How We Fired Our Principal

Before moving to New York, I was alerted to the education crisis in the US through work with an inter-generational collective organizing to solve the extremely high drop out rate in my hometown. I wanted to be involved in the struggle in a meaningful way, and thought I would be best suited to do that in the classroom. I was accepted to a certification program in NYC and moved out here to work at one of the new small public high schools.Read more.

Flash Mob Takes on Whole Foods CEO

Latest from the Blogs
posted by Blake, March 2nd

LabourStart and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) have launched McJobs.org, a website intended to connect McDonald's workers from around the world.

There has been controversy over the term "McJob", which refers to low-paying, contingent work in the service industry. McDonald's objected when Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the term in 2003.

posted by Anne, February 26th

Scores of employees gathered to help Bob Moore celebrate his 81st birthday...Moore...responded with a gift of his own -- the whole company. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan Moore unveiled means that his 209 employees now own the place and its 400 offerings of stone-ground flours, cereals and bread mixes. Read more here: http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/bobs_red_mil...

posted by Blake, February 24th

A new EPI report show that one in four African American and Latino workers are currently underemployed compared to 14% of white workers. Those numbers include not only the government's official unemployment figures, but also account for discouraged and "involuntary part-time" workers.

posted by danh, February 24th

Find out what the RadicalsAtWork.org editorial committee is thinking and planning this week.

posted by Blake, February 15th

“Just remember, if you’re not stealing from work, you’re stealing from your family,” a young woman declares in a video promoting Steal Something From Work Day.  The April 15th event encourages stealing from work as a protest against capitalism as a system that derives profit from unpaid labor, which itself is “stolen” from workers.

Whether or not it represents a comprehensive anti-capitalist strategy, history has shown theft to be tactic widely utilized by workers and consumers during economic crisis.  In the 1970s, radical economics professor Harry Cleaver noted that workers in the US practiced widespread “self-reduction” of rising prices by refusing to pay for food, gas and utilities.

posted by Anne, February 10th

For two weeks in January Belgian brewery workers blocked roads, set fire to beer crates, kidnapped managers and handed out free beer as part of their tactics against job cuts proposed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer.

posted by danh, February 10th

Old-school radical history focused on the debates between radical leaders, and ignored what militant workers were thinking and doing.

In this presentation at the new study group From Struggle to Socialism, scholar Charlie Post flips that old method upside-down.

posted by Anne, February 7th

Who are the real heroes of the American workplace? A new reality show called "undercover boss" argues that its CEOs. Read more about it here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-ae.zontv07feb07,0,6004171....