Great Resource

Look for the Union Label: A Celebration of Union Logos and Emblems



Hat tip to John at Social Design Notes

Half sheet flyer with all the bands in place

New Poster

This one took a lot of work, in part because I'm not a good artist. I'm a good assembler. Making the truck image was not an easy task. It started out looking like a really bad cartoon. I think I managed to avoid that and to make it a big more abstract. You'll let me know if I failed, I'm sure.

And another new flyer

440 Workers Stay Home

Don't mess with mine workers!

Blacksville #2 Mine Idle After 440 Workers Stay Home

Posted Monday, September 29, 2008 ; 06:20 PM
Updated Monday, September 29, 2008 ; 07:07 PM

BLACKSVILLE -- Coal production at a mine in Monongalia County came to a halt today when every union miner stayed home, as part of a political protest.

It was an idle day Monday at the Blacksville #2 Mine.

More than 440 workers who are members of the United Mine Workers of America took what's called a Memorial Day instead of going to work.

Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Assocation showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers.

They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barak Obama.

The UMWA has endorsed the democratic presidential nominee.

"This was a surprise visit," explained VP Local 1702, Safety Chairman Eric Greathouse, "and a lot of the miners felt this was a direct slap in the face of the union because they were trying to coerce our people into saying things against Barck Obama."

"Consol doesn't let anybody on their property - never," said Safety Committee Member Mark Dorsey, "And for them to let the NRA come on the property and solicit our membership was totally uncalled for. We made our endorsement to our political process and we didn't bother them and they shouldn't be harassing our membership over this."

The workers will return to work at 12:01 Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson for Consol said the company is not issuing any comment on the day.

The skills of workers

A couple of nights ago, I couldn't sleep. For some reason, I thought back to my days of working in the corn canning factory for Green Giant in Le Sueur, Minnesota.

The work was all-consuming. We worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. We had the option of taking one day off, but the prospect of overtime pay made that choice unlikely.

For about one month, my entire life was consumed by factory work. All of which is lost, over and dead. I spent a few moments looking for images of husking machines, kernel stripping machines, etc. The knowledge is gone. The reality that consumed me for a brief period of time is lost in the ether.

This happens all the time. The everyday life of workers: the machines with which we interact, the quotas which guide our actions from moment to moment. They are all gone. Lost in the wind. Overpassed by progress. New machines. New technology.

Skills that marked us as valuable workers have died again and again, as technology makes us obsolete.

I wish I could do what Gene Gable accomplished in his article Waxing nostalgic over paste-up. He talks about the skills that I mastered nearly 20 years ago that made it possible for me to live a productive life and earn a decent, union wage. These skills have all become obsolete now. The lives of printers and typesetters have metamorphosed into unrecognizable cockroaches of progress.

What do we, as workers, do when our skills become obsolete? What choices do we have? How do we honor our learning and skills once they are no longer needed?

Back from the National Assembly

Last weekend, Detroit. This weekend, Cleveland. I sure can pick the vacation spots!

We just got back from the National Assembly, an anti-war conference held in Cleveland. Around 400 people participated. This in a time when Iraq is barely in the news, the country is distracted by electoral politics and impending economic crises. It's pretty damn impressive, if you ask me.

I cannot begin to describe the difference between the two conferences I attended in the last two weeks. Cleveland was a majority of old timers with a strong base in the unions. Robert's Rules of Order applied. Very, very different.

We decided to drive a take our own sweet time about it. Stopped in Michigan City, Indiana to see trains. Stopped in Kenosha, WI to ride a cable car and look at the lake. Stopped outside of Milwaukee to rest and relax. Stopped in Madison, WI, to visit awesome independent bookstores.

Really good time and fun to share with Ravenhub.

Minnesota Daily Supports Teach-In

Awesome. The student newspaper for the Zooniversity encourages students to attend the teach in!

Teach-in for AFSCME

Faculty and students should support striking workers Sept. 11 and 12.

as the University workers' strike continues into its second week, the University's academic community needs to stand with AFSCME employees. This Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., University faculty, students and AFSCME workers are asked to meet at the Oak Street Cinema near the corner of Washington Avenue and Oak Street in Stadium Village in support of the current workers' strike. The Teach-in, as the event is called, is intended to take the place of regularly scheduled classes in protest of both President Bob Bruininks and the University administration's wage increase offer to University workers, and as a learning opportunity in labor history.

The morning session will include AFSCME members, faculty, graduate students, labor educators and student activists discussing the importance of labor movements and the purpose of unions. A film and panel discussion of the 2003 AFSCME strike will take place in the afternoon. Following the morning session at noon on both days, students and faculty are encouraged to join striking workers on the picket line to show solidarity - the University administration must see they represent only the interests of the minority on campus and are supported by few.

Some faculty and students have already taken steps to oppose the University administration. professors and graduate students have moved classes off campus and students, this past Friday, protested a Board of Regents meeting. To those weary of politics, the University workers strike is not a political issue. The state Legislature already approved a 3.25 percent plus wage increase to state workers. It is the University administration that intentionally lowered the pay increase to 2.25 percent for technical and clerical workers and 2.5 percent for health-care workers. Bob Bruininks has devalued the worth of these women and men.

"The students are a bulwark of liberty," the writer José Martí said near the turn of the 20th century, "and its strongest army." University students and their teachers have an opportunity on Sept. 11 and 12 to amplify the voices of the striking technical, clerical and health-care workers. Please support the University workers on Tuesday and Wednesday and show them their worth.

Teach In flyer

The teachers of the U of M who support the AFSCME strike decided to put together a teach in. I worked on the flyer(s) this weekend. This should be a great chance for people to catch up on strike doings and to learn more about the labor movement.



Here's a 4-up version to hand on the picket lines.



This morning, Ravenhub and I got up before dawn to meet on the picket lines from 6 to 7 a.m. This was to stop the delivery trucks that come in with food and materials at the dorms. We turned back one truck, but we also got to meet three women strikers who were just awesome.

The awesome power of a strike

AFSCME workers at the University of Minnesota went on strike Wednesday, and it has been awesome to behold. The University has been steadily moving away from the mission of educating the populace and into a role as leader in research and elitist training of the twit children of the middle class. Oops. That's not exactly the language used in the recruiting material.

So, along with the elitist goals, it should come as no suprise that the U of M feels it can treat its lowest paid workers, the clerics, the techs, the dental assistants, the parking lot workers, the sign language interpreters, the child care workers -- like the peons they wish for in their fuedlistic dreams.

Given that, it is just awesome when the workers say, "No!".

I've had the opportunity to participate in the Labor and Community Strike Support Committee and the events of the last few days have simply rocked my world.

On Wednesday, more than 1,500 workers and their supporters rallied on the U of M mall and I was totally fired up by so many of the speeches. Elizabeth Edwards, stopped by during a campaign swing through the state to say she and her husband were walking the picket lines in spirit. Union leaders from the UTU Transit Workers Union and the Northwest Airlines Mechanics Unions, whose strikes received support from AFSCME workers and the community, were there to pay back the support and more.

Today, about 150 of us marched into the Board of Regents meeting to demand the workers' be given a fair wage increase.

This was followed by a rally of 500 plus people who have been walking the picket lines for three days now and who are still standing strong and backing each other up.

It is impossible to be cynical or demoralized when days like today occur.

We Support U of M Workers

Yesterday about 50 of us showed up at one of the major intersections of the University of Minnesota campus to hold up signs in support of the clerical and technical workers who will be going out on strike next week.

It was a lovely sunny day and traffic was extremely heavy. With the 35W bridge collapse, much of the downtown traffic is diverted to the Washington Avenue bridge over the Mississippi which leads right through the middle of the West Bank and East Bank campuses of the Uni.

I've done a lot of "bannering" -- holding up signs for a particular cause -- on street corners over the years, and this one was fairly successful. I hold the sign up high and try to make contact with people driving by. Some are confused, many wave, honk or give a thumbs up. Only two shook their heads negatively. They were white men in fancy cars. Fuck 'em.

There is an on-line petition I urge you to sign here.

We call on the University Administration to avert a strike by the clerical, technical and healthcare workers, represented by AFSCME. The University can stop a strike by offering a wage increase that puts real money on the table, and stops the downward slide in standard of living for the University's lowest-paid workers.

Money was allocated from the state legislature to pay for staff and employee wage increases. Other employee groups have gotten their raises, all of them bigger than what has been offered to AFSCME workers. Now is the time to extend a real wage offer to these workers, before a strike leaves the University to start the new school year understaffed and in a climate of labor unrest.

Moreover, we urge the University to stop attempts to eliminate the value of annual step increases by giving smaller and smaller across-the-board increases. Step increases are compensation for accumulated skills and long-term commitment to University jobs. Employees wait years to reach the tops of their pay scales, which represent the true value of their work. Given turnover among employees, and the number of employees at the top of their step ranges, there is no significant cost to the University for step increases.

Leave steps out of the discussion, and offer University AFSCME employees a general wage increase that maintains a quality standard of living, catching up and keeping up with inflation.

Again, if you care about low-wage workers, please sign the petition.

For information about the community strike support group, read more here.

Getting ready for a strike

Went to my second Strike Support committee meeting on Saturday and agreed to help put together a rally next Wednesday.




If you want a good reason to support the workers, look at this lovely graph comparing salary increases over various job categories at the University:



Seem a little unfair to you? I thought so!

Rotten neighbors

Don't you just hate it when you live next to people who drive you crazy? I've got one particularly rotten neighbor. They consistently crow about how wonderful, intelligent, and productive they are. Then they treat their workers like shit

My neighbor is the Uninversity of Minnesota and it is attempting, once again, to screw their own staff by offering them a wage that doesn't even come close to cost-of-living.

We didn't stand for it four years ago, and we're not going to take it again this year. This morning I joined with over 50 others to pack a meeting room with people willing, eager and able to support the workers when and if they go on strike this fall. For more information, check out the support committee website in the next few days, weeks and months.