I found this hotel yesterday and it's pretty amazing, a twenty story modernist building that could be anywhere. Except that this hotel has been taken over by its workers, and is a fascinating example of 21st century self-management. Whe I saw The Take I was a bit sceptical about a prescription of the future based on the production of ceramics and suits in the fordist style, but the takeover movement is much broader than that, please see the book/directory Sin Patron for more details.

Help Save the Bauen Hotel

Dear Friends,

The movements of worker-run businesses in Latin America are growing, creating dignified democratic jobs in the rubble of neoliberalism¹s ruinous experiments on that continent.

In Caracas recently, the first pan-Latin meeting of recovered companies was a tremendous success, with 600 workers from 263 companies in eight countries taking the first steps to build an alternative trading network that will deepen and broaden the power of these new social movements.

Labor Notes Trouble Makers Training NYC November 12

Labor Notes is hosting a
New York Troublemakers' School! Join workers from around the city and
share ideas about how to fight back against unfair or abusive
employers. Learn on-the-job organizing skills, build networks with
other workplace activists, and meet some of the folks featured in A
Troublemaker's Handbook 2, new this year from Labor Notes.

When? Saturday November 12, 9:00am-7:00pm

Where? Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St. (in
lower Manhattan), Room N402.

Workshops will include:

Developing New Leaders: How do we get our co-workers to take
responsibility for fighting back at work and building a strong union?
This workshop will deal with the problem of turning sympathetic
co-workers into leaders and organizers on the job.

Mobilizing around Health and Safety: Health and safety problems
aren't just issues to grieve-- since these problems can affect all of
your co-workers, they can also create opportunities to organize. Come
learn how to mobilize around health and safety issues on the job.

Continuous Bargaining: Is management making changes to the workplace
that have negative impacts on you, your co-workers, and your union?
New technologies, new management policies, and new ways of organizing
work increase stress, eliminate jobs, and weaken unions. In this
workshop we will examine these changes and discuss "Continuous
Bargaining," a strategic approach to building our unions and
protecting workers in a changing workplace.

Working to Rule: Even when we can't go on strike, workers have the
power to win gains on the job and in negotiations with the boss. This
workshop will deal with different ways to pressure management from
within the workplace.

Fighting Racism and Building Unity at Work: No matter where you work,
chances are you have a multi-racial workplace. Bosses often use race
to keep workers divided; these racial divisions can keep workers from
building power on the job. Come learn about different ways to fight
racism at work.

REGISTRATION is $25, with discounts for groups and low income
workers. Space is limited, so sign up today by calling 718-284-4144
or emailing william@labornotes.org. For more information, call Labor
Notes co-editor William Johnson at 718-284-4144 or email
william@labornotes.org.

********

Co-Editor

Labor Notes

104 Montgomery St.

Brooklyn, NY 11225
www.labornotes.org

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"No Justice and No Peace:

A Critique of Current Social Change Politics"
Selina Musuta and Darby Hickey, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest #4 ue4.php

As two people actively involved in movements for social justice, we are constantly discussing and critiquing what we see happening in the name of “changing the world”. Having resided in DC for several years, though not originally “from” the city, we have a particular perspective on the current culture of the mass mobilization for social change. Additionally, as two individuals living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, citizenship, and more we struggle to understand what paths can be charted to a future that will liberate every part of us.

Sean Nortz writes:

New York University Graduate Students Strike

NYU Grad Students, through GSOC/Local 2110 UAW, have authorized a strike this morning which will result in a complete stoppage of work by graduate students in response to the administration's refusal to renew their contract, which expired on August 31, 2005 (the National Labor Relations Board, composed largely of apointees from a reactionary Bush administration, determined, contrary to a 2000 ruling, that universities do not have to negotiate with graduate student unions). A contract "offered" to the union by the administration in August was "little more than a public relations stunt" which acquiesced to none of the principal demands in an acceptable fashion.

Radicalism in Labor: Radical Approaches to the Crisis
in the Labor Movement

CUNY Graduate Center , 365 Fifth Avenue (34th St. +
5th Ave.)

Saturday, October 29 10:00AM-4:00PM

Elebash Recital Hall

Register on-site: 9:00-10:00AM

Students: $5 – Public: $10 (cash or check preferred)

Reservations are encouraged for guaranteed seating
Please RSVP to: patrickinglis@gmail.com

10:00-10:15AM : WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

10:15-11:45AM : PROFESSIONAL AND TECNICAL UNIONISM

Barbara Bowen (Professional Staff Congress-CUNY), Bill
Henning (Communications Workers of America Local
1180), Kathleen Hull (Adjunct Association and
Professor of Humanities, NYU), Mike Phelan (Committee
of Interns and Residents)

11:45AM-12:45PM : BREAK FOR LUNCH

12:45-2:15PM : UNIONS OF THE WORKING POOR

Willie Baptist (University of the Poor), Kevin
Fitzpatrick (New York Taxi Workers Alliance ), Saru
Jayaraman (Restaurant Opportunities Center of New
York), Diana Polson (CUNY Graduate Center),
Representative (Kensington Welfare Rights Union)

2:30-4:00PM : THE POLITICS AND STRATEGY OF LABOR
RADICALISM

Stanley Aronowitz (CUNY Graduate Center), Marty
Fishgold (Former President, International Labor
Communications Association), Gerry Hudson (SEIU),
Andrew Ross (American Studies, NYU), Penny Lewis
(Borough of Manhattan Community College), Kim Moody
(Labor Notes)

The Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and
Work

* Phone: 212-817-2001 *

Information: saronowitz@igc.org

Shining India’s swanky new sweatshops

Hindustan Times

Dinesh C. Sharma

Call centres housed in swanky glass towers may represent the new face of 21st-century India, but the labour practices they follow belong to the 19th century.

Though business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are projected as promoters of innovation, flexibility and freedom at workplace, they are actually quite inflexible, eroding even basic rights at work. This is the finding of the first major study of labour practices in Indian call centres.

The BPO industry in India currently employs 350,000 workers, according to the trade body Nasscom.

Superior work environment, the use of latest technologies, higher salaries compared to the manufacturing sector, fancy designations, smart and young peer workers — all these make young employees believe that the job they are doing is of an executive or a professional in a multinational-like environment.

¡Viva San Precario!

In transit-Entránsito through MayDaySur

Colectivo Entránsito

1> Yes, we can! Determination and construction of a post-identitary common sense

It is no comfortable to inhabit a territory where the big truths are falling down to pieces, where impotency, conformism and fear are
tonalities that accompany contemporary life. In that very territory, we decided to grab strongly the proposal of MayDaySur without really knowing clearly how it would work. It was in fact a political experiment that arouse lots of doubts and some bad auguries. In the process of gestation of this creature we shared many moments of vertigo and indecision. However, some odd trust had installed among us. "Odd" because it didn´t provide us with a clearly defined plan, it was more a kind of instinctive gesture. and a "trust" due to the organizative capability of our
movements, to the intelligence, desire, creativity and strength that we are able to deploy when connecting and working together. We also did trust the "multitude", that experiences directly the "precarization" and still carries, in its ambivalence, the power of rebelliousness and disobedience. We think that the building process of this MayDaySur has proved us that the collective, excited about creating a new "common" and generous work, going beyond rigid identities is able to produce very powerful
connections. We celebrate the intuition and determination in the
beginnings of this process, as well as the generosity and enormous disposition to collective working demonstrated by the movements in Seville in particular, and by all those who composed this true event.

2> New political animals: flexgeneration

-"Not a single worker in here. We should have gone with the Unions. This is a 'botellón' (spanish term for young meetings to drink alcohol in the streets)!"- shouted indignant a union mate.

-"Behave yourself, fuck! This is no demonstration, this is a 'puterío' (disrespective Spanish term for sex work)!"- cried an overflowed policeman.

The composition and the way of being-in in a demonstration left many perplexed. All those fierce-looking people, that music, those
watchwords and, to make matters worse, demonstrating the 1st of May!, the traditional working day. These two personages share, everyone in his way, a feeling of strangeness towards the new and singular expression forms of the precariat. It gets difficult, both for the Order forces and for a certain leftist sector, to understand the codes and modalities of action of those bodies. What are we celebrating? The joy of taking back the streets and giving a contundent visibility to that precarity as conjugated in 1rst person. We demonstrate that we are blazing a trail to get things upside down. We feel that we are thousands who share similar situations and that together we can overcome them. For us the political practice, even at the hardest working time, is a joyful passion. In the words of Gilles Deleuze : "don´t you think that you ought to be sad to be militant, even if what you fight against is abominable. What does possess a
revolutionary force is the bond of desire with reality (and not its getaway under form of representation)". We talk about a new generation of workers and that means that those living today from their work cannot be reduced to an unique identity.

Today the soundsystem, the beats, the dj´s and the "speakers" are to the new generations what country orchestras, the bass drums, the noisy tracks and the megaphone were for the former ones. It would be a bit absurd to maintain that expressive forms, communicative codes, the "ways of feeling" and even the "class aesthetics" would remain the same throughout the history.

U.S. Labor Is in Retreat as Global Forces Squeeze Pay and Benefits

David Streitfeld,
LA Times

Workers at auto parts maker Delphi Corp. will be asked this week to take a two-thirds pay cut. It's one of the most drastic wage concessions ever sought from unionized employees.

Workers at General Motors Corp., meanwhile, tentatively agreed on Monday to absorb billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler employees are certain to face similar demands.

The forces affecting Delphi and GM workers are extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market, where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families.

Forty-Three Percent of U.S. Workers Called in Sick With Fake Excuses in the Last 12 Months

An annual survey of absenteeism at the office revealed an increase in the number of workers who have called in sick with bogus excuses. Forty-three percent of workers said they called in sick when they felt well at least once during the last year, up from 35 percent in the 2004 survey. The survey also revealed that some hiring managers were less tolerant of workers playing hooky with 23 percent stating they had fired an employee for missing work without a legitimate reason.

The CareerBuilder.com survey, "Out of the Office 2005," was conducted from August 10 to August 22, 2005 of more than 2,450 workers, including 875 hiring managers.

Peter Waterman writes:

"AFL-CIO and the White Man's Burden"

Peter Waterman

[Originally written in 2002 but unpublished at that time, this piece seems to me to have again become relevant in the light of the AFL-CIO's last (latest?) convention. Here its international relations came to be challenged on a national stage for the first time. Not for the last time. The 'boxes' referred to in the text have disappeared in the transmogrification from Word to this site. Interested readers or publishers can obtain the orginal from me. PW. September 1, 2005]

THE EMAIL DIALOGUES

Kim Scipes, a former trade unionist now living in Chicago, has been campaigning over the last years for an opening of the books on the international policy of the 'old' AFL-CIO, with respect to the Pinochet coup in Chile, 1973. Now he is questioning the policy of the 'new' AFL-CIO with respect to the attempted coup in Venezuela and, most-recently, to Cuba. (Scipes 2000, 2002a, b).

In response to such challenges, Stan Gacek, a leading International Department officer, issued a public response which later appeared on the AFL-CIO website (AFL-CIO 2002). The speed of this response, and its reproduction on the website is, in my experience, an innovation. But, apparently, an innovation of restricted application. In a further reply to Scipes on the Cuba funding, which has not been publicly circulated, Gacek declared that

'In response to…your e-mails, you should know that the Solidarity Center is NOT receiving any funding under the USAID/Cuba Program of May, 2002.' (Forwarded email, June 26, 2002)

Puzzled by this odd formulation, and wondering whether Kim might have maybe made a loose accusation, I re-read his email but then realized that the problem was not a loose accusation but, rather, a tight answer – a legalistic formulation which did not address the substance of Kim Scipes' question — or even the detailed US state funding data Kim had provided!