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Tuesday, March 29, 2005 |
Before today's disgruntled railroad craft-unionists seeking strength through cooperation and organizational mergers, before UTU's bureaucratic vision of one big operating union, before the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) sought to promote industrial unionism as a solution to labor's problems, before . . . well really after Eugene V. Debs helped create the American Railway Union (ARU), a true rail industrial organization that demonstrated the strength and weakness of unfied labor, there were the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The Wobblies. As with the ARU, a measure of the effectiveness of their approach and the threat that it represented to the Cheap-Labor Conservatives can be gleaned from the response it elicited. Prosecution under the law, police and military actions, assassinations. All the usual tricks used to put working stiffs back in their places.
It turns out that 2005 is the centenary of the founding of the IWW and a Brother sends us the following announcement of a Conference and Celebration of the event:
"One Big Union": The Dream, the Reality, the History
The IWW and a Century of Radical Labor Activism, 1905-2005
A Conference and a Celebration
Saturday, May 7, 2005
Paul Robeson Campus Center
Rutgers University, Newark Campus
350 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Newark, NJ
2005 marks one hundred years since the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World ("The
Wobblies"), a profound event in American labor and radical history -- indeed in American history
-- and a point from which it is possible to trace the fortunes and misfortunes of progressive and
left politics in America for the rest of the century. This conference brings together scholars,
actors, artists, and worker-activists, for dialogue and reflection on the following questions: What
forces produced this extraordinary dream of a unified, indeed global movement of workers for
radical social change -- of bringing men and women across industries, cultures and languages
into "One Big Union"? Who were these visionaries and what were their specific strategies? What
were the movement's successes and failures? Where is it now? What is the history of the IWW
in New Jersey? What are the legacies and traditions of the IWW that matter for working people
today? By answering these questions collectively our goal is to better understand what light
present and past shed on one another.
10:23:47 AM 
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In response to our request for comments on the little matter of Federal PREEMPTION with respect to a proposed bill by the state of Minnesota designed to protect injured rail workers' rights, Brother P. sends the following:
"This bill is designed to make it a crime for a railroad or a person employed by a railroad to obstruct the treatment or threaten discipline to a railroad worker injured on the job.
CFR Sec.225.1 is designed to provide information about hazards & risks that exist on railroads to the FRA.
49CFR Sec. 225.33 is designed to require railroads to develope a control plan for this & also prohibits harassment & intimidation to an injured railroad worker & was likely taken out of context & used to bamboozle the panel into believing that injured workers are already afforded protection.
The 10th amendment to the constitution provides that " The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".
I would presume that this allows states to create laws that protect it's citizens. The proposed new law does just that. It is perfectly aligned with CFR 225 & compliments the intent (protection & prevention of injury to railroad workers) perfectly.
My hat is off to UTU MN State Legislative Director Brother Phil Qualy and all of the other players that I do not yet know who worked on this attempt to provide protection for railroad workers in our state."
I have to agree with the Brother, especially that part about the RRs trying to "bamboozle" us. And the appeal to the US Constitution. And the kudos to UTU State Leg. Rep. Qualy.
8:51:56 AM
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© Copyright 2005 The Usual Suspect.
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