Remembering Pittston: 99 Strikers who Occupied before Occupy

December 15, 2011

Published at Counterpunch, Common Dreams and Socialist Worker.

After a year of revolutions, strikes, and protest occupations, a new era of struggle has shifted the political landscape. Workers and the poor have taken to the streets, occupying public squares and striking across the globe – from Egypt to Greece to cities across the U.S.

In particular, the Occupy movement in the U.S. has helped to mainstream radical critiques of the capitalist system. The movement’s bold tactics have terrified the ruling one percent, which has lashed out violently to protect its power and wealth from the fury of the 99 percent.

When it comes to breaking the rules of the one percent, a natural yet complicated alliance between Occupy and the labor movement offers today’s new struggle against economic inequality historical lessons written by the organized working class. Long before Occupy, the labor movement shaped a tradition of militancy in the United States – a tradition of factory occupations and civil disobedience in the fight for justice and workers power.

Occupying Picket Lines as the Shock Doctrine Goes Postal

November 24, 2011

Published at Socialist Worker.

On Saturday the Maryland and DC AFL-CIO Biennial Convention voted on a resolution in support of Occupy encampments in Washington, DC and Baltimore, pledging to donate $3,000 to each occupation and declaring that the local labor movement considers Occupy Wall Street a picket line not to be crossed by affiliate unions.

Two days later, Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), did just that. Walking passed a noisy picket formed by dozens of Occupy DC protesters and postal workers, Rolando entered the National Press Club building where Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe delivered an austerity rationalization speech on cuts to the U.S. Postal Service.

The One Percent Scrambles to Maintain Profits – and Order

November 4, 2011

Published at Common Dreams.

“The next few months will be crucial for avoiding a dramatic downturn in employment and a further significant aggravation of social unrest.”

That’s the first sentence in a report released this week by the International Labor Organization studying the effects of the economic crisis and its impact on global labor markets. On the one hand, it sounds like common sense: as working and poor people see their livelihoods wracked by joblessness and social cuts while the rich enjoy lavish wealth, low taxes and increased profits, popular anger begins to boil over.

But sometimes it takes an agency of the United Nations to spell out logic that is more elusive for the ruling one percent – that class of CEOs and policymakers which persists on cutting costs and expanding profits while sitting on mountains of capital.

Amid Possible Strike, D.C. Labor and Occupy Movements March Together

October 14, 2011

Published at Common Dreams and Socialist Worker.                  (Update: 32BJ Contract Settlement)

If Wall Street has become the symbolic nerve center for greed and inequality, its political traffic merges onto K Street, Washington DC’s Broadway for deep-pocketed corporate lobbyists.

Photo by Chris Garlock, Union City

But like Wall Street, K Street is now also home to activists who are fed up with a system that rewards the wealthy while delivering nothing but cuts to the rest of us. Part of the general Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread around the country, “Occupy DC” activists are camped out in MacPherson Square where they are working to replicate the kind of occupation that has rocked the streets of New York’s financial district for the last month.

This week, K Street was also part of a march route for building cleaners fighting for a fair contract. The workers – who are preparing for a possible strike in the coming days – marched shoulder to shoulder with Occupy DC protesters.

Look for Working-Class Warriors at Picket Lines, Not Podiums

October 4, 2011

Published at Common Dreams.

Should the “class warrior” title be worn as a badge of honor?

Wall Street and the super-rich certainly seem to think so – judging by their behavior over the past three decades.

Since the late 1970s, Corporate America has been on the warpath against working families and the poor, overseeing an explosion of wealth for the rich while real wages for workers have remained stagnant and traditional employer-provided benefits have been eroded. During that time, unionization rates plunged as employers launched ruthless campaigns against organized labor, hitting private sector workforces especially hard. The corporate offensive reached new heights in 2008 with the onset of the Wall Street-generated financial crisis that was followed by an unprecedented transfer of wealth from workers to the rich by way of massive bank bailouts which nationalized private sector debt and set the stage for sweeping cuts to social spending.