Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

UK RMT’s Bob Crow calls for “generalised strikes and community direct action” to resist ConDem Government assault on jobs, living standards and public services
http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=136993
RMT’s Bob Crow calls for “generalised strikes and community direct action” to resist ConDem Government assault on jobs, living standards and public services

Publication Date: June 30 2010

SPEAKING TO delegates at transport union RMT’s annual conference in Aberdeen today, General Secretary Bob Crow will issue a “call to arms” to the entire Labour and Trade Union Movement and communities under attack for a “sustained campaign of generalised strikes across both the public and private sectors and community direct action to defend public services in the teeth of the fiscal fascism being unleashed by this ConDem government.”

Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, will say:

“This ConDem administration has thrown down the biggest challenge to the Trade Union Movement since Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers. I have no hesitation in saying that it will take general and co-ordinated strike action across the public and private sectors to stop their savage assault on jobs, living standards and public services.

General Strike In Turkey Against Privatizations And Attack On Labor-Transportation Workers To Act

http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29082

Turkey – GENERAL STRIKE!
04 February 2010 -

To support the TEKEL tobacco and food workers struggle against privatizations, contracting and roll backs, 6 labor confederations started a joint general strike in Turkey. The confederations announced they are exercising their “right not to work” as the basis of their action.

Entire country is behind the struggling workers because everyone is under attack from neo liberal, free market policies of the Islamic, pro-US government implementing the IMF and World Bank mandates. Other sectors in Turkey such as students, youth and professional associations are also supporting the strike and are on the streets.

Transportation comes to a halt in Izmir

The third largest city in Turkey came to a halt today as all public workers participated in the action against imperialist mandates to economy in Turkey. The buses and other public transportation systems have completely stopped in Izmir.

Police attacks workers

Workers marching in Unkapi district in Istanbul were attacked by the police, currently, the police and the workers are on a stand-off.

Stand UP For Public Education

Our Children’s Future At Risk

Statement Of The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee TWSC

Using the pretext of not enough money, the governor and legislator are cutting tens of billions from education for our children and our right to public education. K-12 class sizes are being increased and teachers are being cutback in poor and working class districts like Oakland and Richmond. How can our kids learn when classes have 30 to 40 students. This is a racist attack on most poor Black and Latino kids while schools in the richer districts get more money. The ILWU stood up for Oakland students in the past when they stopped work in the Port of Oakland to demand that the port help pay for the education of the children in the district.

While Chevron and the Refinery for example in Richmond make billions they refuse to pay taxes for the schools in the district. Why is that there are not even enough pencils and books for our children in these school districts in the richest state and the richest country in the world? There will be a student/teacher worker march on Feb 27, 2010 in Richmond to demand that these corporations pay for education if they want to operate in California.

The Misunderstood Robber Baron: On Cornelius Vanderbilt & The 1877 National Railway Strike

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/fraser

The Misunderstood Robber Baron: On Cornelius Vanderbilt
by STEVE FRASER

This article appeared in the November 30, 2009 edition of The Nation.
November 11, 2009

DOUG CHAYKA
Cornelius Vanderbilt died in January 1877. Six months later, the greatest social insurrection of the nineteenth century paralyzed the operations of Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad (by then overseen by his son William) along with the other three trunk lines connecting the East Coast to Chicago and points farther west. The Great Railroad Strike, as it came to be known, was an upheaval of extraordinary violence sparked by an astonishing act of collusion and callousness: a 10 percent wage cut announced the previous year--amid the century's worst depression--and endorsed in concert by the four trunk lines. Armed confrontations between state militias and infuriated railroad workers and their legions of sympathizers broke out in cities and towns across the country. A general strike paralyzed St. Louis. On a single day 
in Pittsburgh, crowds burned thirty-nine railroad buildings and 1,300 railroad cars and engines as well as a huge grain elevator; armed with Gatling guns, the National Guard killed twenty that night and more the next day. Thomas Scott, who ran the Pennsylvania Railroad, concluded, "Nothing but the insanity of passion, played upon by designing and mischievous leaders, can explain the destruction of vast quantities of railroad equipment." Nothing, that is, except the desperate circumstances of the railroad workers--who for paltry wages risked being killed or maimed in industrial accidents--and their families.

Puerto Rico Port Bosses Drop Lawsuit Against Dockers For Supporting General Strike Action On Oct 15 (google translation)

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.primerahora.com/&ei=fb7nSqmECpDy6gONkJXpBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ7gEwAA&prev=/search?q=http://www.primerahora.com/home&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS310&sa=G

Employees Union announced that Port docks withdrew his lawsuit against
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Updated 8 hours ago (03:35 pm)
Mariana Cobian / First Time

The Employees Union Springs Puerto Rico (University of) reported that the Ports Authority withdrew the lawsuit proceeded against the union for allegedly hindering interstate commerce during the national strike on 15 October last.

The president of the University of Luis Malave, said the day before the strike was met with Port staff, including its executive director Alvaro Pilar, which undertook not to affect the services and operate the docks as usual, "what which we comply. "

However, the day after the strike were deployed with a sworn petition temporary and permanent preliminary injunction in federal court, claiming $ 1 million in damages.

"We were exposed in the media as a labor organization unscrupulous, irresponsible and in violation of multiple federal and state laws. To us this action was greatly surprised," said Malave.

7/24 SF Solidarity Picket To Defend Korean Auto Workers,KTU Public Teachers & KNUM Media Workers

Solidarity Picket At Korean Consulate

To Defend Ssangyong Auto Workers, KTU Public Teachers & KNUM Media Workers

Tuesday July 28, 2009 4:00 PM

Korean Consulate San Francisco

3500 Clay/Laurel St. San Francisco

The Korean labor movement is under a brutal attack. Hundreds of police and hired thugs are attacking the Ssangyong Motor sit-in strike by auto workers. These workers are demanding negotiations over their layoffs. The company has refused to negotiate and instead with the support of the state the management illegally hired thugs to beat up the workers using baseball bats, steel pipes and martial arts weapons(nunchaku). They came on July 21, 2009 to the plant to seriously injure the striking workers which they did. They beat up workers who had no possibility of resisting arrest or defending themselves.

This vicious attack on the Ssangyong Motor workers has been condemned by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions KCTU and they have called for a General Strike and also for solidarity actions at all Korean Embassies and Consulates around the world. The use of organized privatized thugs to attack workers must be protested throughout the world.

International Transport Workers Call For Action Against Honduran Ships To Protest Honduras Coup
http://www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/3512

Honduras ship action declared (También en version española)

17 July 2009

The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) today called for all its union members to oppose the coup in Honduras by focusing protests on the Honduran merchant fleet.

The global union organisation, which represents 656 unions worldwide with four and a half million members, has made the call as its latest move to defend democracy in the coup-stricken Central American nation, and in support of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) condemnation of the military takeover. The action call is likely to affect the loading and unloading of the 650 ships flying the Honduran flag, which the ITF considers a flag of convenience – a low cost cosmetic ship registration by companies with no link to the country and no intention of employing its citizens onboard.

ITF General Secretary David Cockroft stated: “We have to put real pressure on the Honduran military to allow the country to revert to democracy. We are therefore calling on our member unions to consider taking lawful action to defend the rights of the citizens of Honduras. That is likely to include protests that centre on Honduran ships. All such actions will be peaceful, will respect the rights of the seafarers on the ships, but will send a clear message to those in authority – for now – in Honduras, that the outside world does not accept their seizure of power.”

Vahed Union Syndicate Calls For Action On 6/26– Iranian Transportation Workers Call For Solidarity Action
http://www.justiceforiranianworkers.org/?p=594

Justice for Iranian Workers26 June 2009 – Global Solidarity Action Day

« US Teamsters back workers’ rights in IranUna guía rápida de las acciones que tienen lugar a nivel local – ¡las pequeñas acciones pueden tener un gran impacto! »
Vahed Syndicate – Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
18 June Statement
Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
In line with the recognition of the labour rights, we request that June 26 Action Day – Justice for Iranian workers – to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.
In recent days, we continue witnessing the magnificent demonstration of millions of people from all ages, genders, and national and religious minorities in Iran. They request that their basic human rights, particularly the right to freedom and to choose independently and without deception be recognized. These rights are not only constitutional in most of the countries, but also have been protected against all odds.
Amid such turmoil, one witnesses threats, arrests, murders and brutal suppression that one fears only to escalate on all its aspects, resulting in more innocent bloodshed, more protests, and certainly no retreats. The Iranian society is facing a deep political-economical crisis. Million-strong silent protests, ironically loud with un-spoken words, have turned into iconic stature and are expanding from all sides. These protests demand reaction from each and every responsible individual and institution.

Utopia Derailed?
http://www.archaeology.org/0901/abstracts/pullman.html

Utopia Derailed Volume 62 Number 1, January/February 2009
by Arthur Melville Pearson
How the 1894 Pullman strike ended one magnate's vision of a working-class paradise

The last-known photograph of George Pullman (ca. 1895) (Courtesy of the Pullman State Historic Site, Paul Petraitis Collection)

The town of Pullman (ca. 1898) failed as a utopian community. (Courtesy of the Pullman State Historic Site, Paul Petraitis Collection)

Students and volunteers unearth the Arcade Building site. Clockwise from left: Bradley Berry, site director Jane Eva Baxter, Jennifer Norman, and Michael Marshall. (Ken Carl)
Whatever 19th-century railcar magnate George Pullman took with him to the grave is likely to remain a mystery. Fearful that Labor-movement extremists would desecrate his corpse, Pullman left instructions that his lead-lined casket be covered in tar paper and asphalt, and laid in a massive vault of concrete reinforced with steel rails in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. Over this tomb stands a towering Corinthian column with the name "Pullman" carved in its base. Fortunately, the historical record beneath the other monument bearing his name, the town of Pullman, is far more accessible. In what is today Chicago's far South Side, archaeologists are unearthing the remnants of a model community. Built to be "beautiful and harmonious," it was intended to be a place where, in the words of its founder, "strikes and other troubles that periodically convulse the world of labor would not need to be feared."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4384543/France-hit-by-national-strike-on-Black-Thursday.html
France hit by national strike on 'Black Thursday'
France woke up to a day of nationwide strikes in both the public and private sector on what has been billed as 'Black Thursday'
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 3:01PM GMT 29 Jan 2009

(If you go to the websites of the articles, the photos belie the reporting.)

However, disruption to transport networks appeared to less than expected.

Hundreds of thousands of workers are expected at more than 200 rallies to call on President Nicolas Sarkozy to do more to protect jobs and wages.

Three-quarters of people and all the main trade unions support the day of industrial action.

The protesters are demonstrating against the worsening economic climate and rising unemployment in France and at what they believe to be the government's poor handling of the crisis.

The main bulk of protesters will come from across the public sector, from postal workers to court officials and a huge contingent of teachers marching against Mr Sarkozy's plan not to replace 13,500 jobs in education this year when staff retire or quit the profession.