Fieldnotes: Bobcats United IWW Campaign

Report on workplace organizing campaign in Ypsilanti, MI. Originally posted to the Industrial Worker. “Oh, I don’t know, Bobcat Bonnie’s just isn’t the right environment to organize in. No one else seems to really care enough to take a stand,” I told the facilitator of the Ypsilanti IWW’s Workplace Control and Resistance workshop in early July…
Fieldnotes: Bobcats United IWW Campaign via thefreeonline.. https://thefreeonline.com/2024/12/15/fieldnotes-bobcats-united-iww-campaign/#respond

Report on workplace organizing campaign in Ypsilanti, MI. Originally posted to the Industrial Worker.

“… I told the facilitator of the Ypsilanti IWW’s Workplace Control and Resistance workshop in early July of 2024. I said this as a somewhat experienced organizer, too! I had already taken an OT101 and been part of two organizing campaigns prior to my employment at Bobcat Bonnie’s. Even experienced organizers can fall prey to this type of “doomerism” thinking. As you read along, you will see that there was always an opportunity to organize here, and everywhere, including your own “unorganizable” workplace.

Little did I know, less than two months after this workshop, individual workers would begin to be very vocal about their grievances at the restaurant. A couple of days after Labor Day, I woke up to this message in my 7shifts (our scheduling app) group chat from a fellow worker:

“For everyone listening…You can’t expect us to work Labor Day while we wait to cash our paychecks. For my coworkers, educate yourself on French history. Fire me.”

I immediately realized I was wrong in my assessment I made back in July. I then felt a sense of urgency to meet with this person (let’s call them Ember) and get organized. So, I reached out to them over Facebook Messenger:

“Hey, Ember, I really loved your messages in the 7shifts chat, and you’re 100% right. We should get together for some coffee in the next couple of days to talk about this.”

I will note here that the staff at Bobcat Bonnie’s was a really tight-knit crew. We were all friends with each other and hung out outside of work frequently. We mostly had each other’s contact information, and for those we didn’t, it was easily accessible on the 7shifts app. The boss gave us a great resource for gathering information through that app, and we already had built amazing relationships with one another. So, in a way, I think we were informally organizing before this happened, and it set us up for success.

So, when Ember and I met for coffee, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, when we took it a step further and asked a few of our closest coworkers to meet for dinner and fill them in on our discussion, it also was nothing out of the ordinary. Let’s fast forward to that dinner.

Ember and I began the conversation by talking about the bounced paychecks and how f*cked up it was that many of us worked on Labor Day with no pay. Out of the seven of us at the table, the majority had at least one bounced paycheck. Personally, I never had a bounced paycheck, but after this discussion, it became apparent that this had been an ongoing, widespread issue for over a year and we had no idea because everyone was gaslit by management into believing it was their own fault somehow. This is why it is critical to agitate. Ask your coworkers about what makes them upset on the job, and record it somewhere; we could have started organizing around this issue much earlier. One worker had six bounced paychecks in just the past year.

The conversation quickly evolved into an informal grievance hearing. We realized we were all collectively experiencing many issues besides just the bounced paychecks. I suggested to the group the idea of a petition; it seemed like a good first step to collectivize our grievances. So, in the coming weeks, we continued to meet and workshop together as an informal organizing committee until we had a finalized petition on September 16th with a plan to deliver it to the corporate office on October 7th. It had four demands outlined in it:

1. An end to bounced paychecks and a resolution of payroll issues by the next payday, October 11th.

2. Guaranteed, consistent scheduling with sufficient hours to meet each individual employee’s needs starting November 2nd.

3. Updated and comprehensive training procedures for both management and employees by November 18th.

4. An immediate end to inappropriate comments from management. Management routinely belittled us and talked trash behind our backs to our fellow workers, in an effort to pit us against each other. Other times, they would talk inappropriately to the younger women on staff, using their positions of power to make predatory remarks.

We also worked together in this time to complete a full social networking document with each employee’s name, contact info, job position, an assessment column, “Who Is Talking?” column, and an area for notes. With a finalized petition in hand, we split up the rest of the staff amongst each organizer to complete one-on-ones, so we could get their input and, hopefully, their signature! Over the course of these three weeks leading up to our delivery date of October 7th, we spoke with every coworker and received signatures from nearly 90 percent of the staff.

Armed with a petition with full support from the entire staff and signatures from the overwhelming majority of us, we hatched a plan to march on the corporate office in Ferndale and hand-deliver the letter to the owner of the company. A group of nine of us committed to driving out to Ferndale from Ypsilanti; we assigned roles to each person and role played the delivery beforehand. Not only this, but we prepared an employee “press release” flyer to hand-deliver to the workers at each Bobcat Bonnie’s location across the state of Michigan so that our narrative would spread before the employer could formulate a response to our organizing. We split into different teams to cover the most ground in the least amount of time. This flyer explained what we did, why we did it, and contained a QR code that led to a carrd.co website we had prepared which let people know how to join the fight. We also plastered these flyers near employee entrances and dumpsters.

Everything went according to plan. The March on the Boss (MOTB) was beautifully executed. The workers at the other Bobcat locations were all sympathetic to the cause and expressed similar grievances. The general vibe at each store was “Wow, I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner.” We felt like we were on top of the world and that it was only a matter of time until the other stores would join the struggle for a better Bobcat Bonnie’s.

Trump is a nightmare for EU vassals, for the US, for women.. and for the Planet

With its Submissiveness to the US and Contempt for its President-elect, the EU Bloc has set itself up for a Perfect Storm of Punishment

15 Dec, 2024 by Tarik Cyrilamar at Home World News via https://wp.me/pIJl9-Fdy https://wp.me/pIJl9-Fdy Telegram t.me/thefreeonline

Believe Trump’s Threats to Use Presidency for Vengeance

For a man his age, incoming US president Donald Trump has a knack for cultivating a bad-boy image. Refreshingly direct to the point of rude honesty, or dishonesty, as the case may be, he has no time for polite circumlocution. His threats are harsh, his demands unvarnished, including toward Washington’s so-called allies in Europe, which really are, at best, clients, and, more realistically, just vassals.

By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul,@tarikcyrilamar tarikcyrilamar.substack.com

In that spirit of candid, no-frills domination, Trump already has a long record of threatening NATO, which he sees – plausibly – as a scam in which European members fleece the US to free-ride on its insane (but that’s a different story…) military spending.

Or, in the genteel English still cultivated at The Economist, “through NATO, America is the guarantor of the continent’s security.” Yeah, right, by firing missiles at Russia…

The problem with Trump is that he is uncouth enough to know the real relationship is much more like Don Corleone “protecting” your funeral parlor. And he behaves accordingly: Even during his first term in the White House between 2017 and 2021, he started scaring other NATO members into higher military spending, while never allowing them to feel safe about his commitment.

Art of the tough deal: Keep ‘em guessing, keep ‘em on their toes. And it worked, too: the European spongers began to pay more. So, there will be more of that, rest assured. If, that is, there will be a NATO to speak of.

Even less noticed is the fact that the new old US president – and thus capo dei capi of the West – is not much kindlier disposed toward the EU.

And yet there it is: Trump’s frank, open, and long-standing dislike for that strange bureaucratic behemoth that is about as democratic as the former Soviet Union, less efficient than the Habsburg Empire, and so full of its global “norm-setting” mission that even American “indispensability” looks oddly old-fashioned by comparison.

50 outrageous Donald Trump quotes – cleveland

As early as the beginning of 2017, when the great American bruiser gate-crashed the White House for the first time, The Economist warned its European readers to “be afraid” of Trump, a man harboring “indifference” and “contempt” for the EU. Really? How unheard of! The raunchy-tycoon-turned-peremptory-president, the British establishment Pravda of neoliberalism and Russophobia explained, would seek to shatter the EU by playing “bilateralism.”

That, of course, is Euro-babble for respecting individual countries’ governments by taking their sovereignty more seriously than power-grabbing delusions of grandeur in Brussels. And – oh, horror! – he might even try to talk Russia. (Spoiler: back then he did not – big mistake.)

Trump likely to leave Ukraine with financial black hole – NYT

That, however, was 2017. Now, things have moved on. Even before Trump won his second presidential election by crushing his Democratic opponents, The Economist admitted that “’Trump-proving’ Europe” is a notion doomed to fail, which means EU leaders may well become “geopolitical roadkill.” How so, you may wonder?

Well, first of all there is Russia. Regarding Moscow, Trump seems ready to talk, and in a substantial manner we have not seen since the end of the Cold War: He has publicly signaled that he does not believe in trying to coerce Moscow by further escalation; his freshly appointed advisers Mike Waltz and Keith Kellogg, though known for ambiguous signals in the past, will fall into line, as they should as public servants. And if not, they’ll be fired, Trump-style, fast and without remorse.

To say the least, Trump no longer feels as restrained by Washington’s deep-state, deep-freeze Cold War re-enactors as during his first term. Sure, it’s the US: there is always the possibility someone might try to murder him, again.

Anti Racist struggle in UK- Muntjac Magazine -ISSUE 1-ANARCHISM DECOLONISED- Theory & Analysis

The following is the opening Editorial of “Muntjac Magazine” which launches today. Muntjac is a collective of 4th^[1] world Anarchists who are aiming to release the Magazine three/four times a year. The first edition (Near 80 pages split across two zines of it!) is now avalible to download for free here 1661 views…

Muntjac | Theory & Analysis from Organise Magazine. via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FcW Telegram t.me/thefreeonline December 13, 2024

Muntjac editorial

MJ issue 1 Part 1 Read / MJ issue 1 Part 1-booklet

all free downloads…muntjacmag.noblogs.org/mag/

Physical copies are available from their shop ko-fi.com/muntjacmag as well as a series of distros and Infoshops across the country.

As ever, since the day we arrived here, it’s been up to us.

The racialized peoples of this hellish archipelago… to defend ourselves.

Let’s take a partial look at our collective histories of struggle…

In 1919, in Cardiff, Liverpool and East London racists targeted Chinese, Somali, West Indian (Caribbean), Malaysian, Egyptian and other racialized residents, many of whom were British colonial troops stationed or demobilized in Britain, the racists also targeted their partners and spouses who were often white women. In response, at various intervals in Cardiff groups of whites that had formed lynch mobs found themselves in shootouts with the racialized people they tried to target.

Red Summer of 1919: How Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs …

In 1948, in Liverpool the National Union of Seamen strived to keep Black people out of work, boasting that “we have been successful in changing ships from coloured to white, and in many instances in persuading masters and engineers that white men should be carried in preference to coloured.” During an extended period of attack, Black sailors armed themselves to stave off attempted massacres by mobs of whites either in uniform or in plain clothes intent on destroying them, the lodgings they stayed in and the clubs they frequented.

Report from Porto Alegre Anarchist bookfair

Keeping the flame of anarchist agitation alive and spreading throughout the city, meetings between anti-authoritarian individuals and those eager for change, and distributing books and publications—we gathered in the hall of the Acadêmicos da Orgia Samba School

~ Anarchist News Agency ~Report from Porto Alegre Anarchist bookfair

On the walls and outside of the hall in Porto Alegre, Brazil, banners and posters affirmed the love of freedom and the permanent revolt against everything that wants to dominate us and devastate the Earth.

On the stands of materials on display, anarchist messages blared through books, fanzines, magazines, posters, t-shirts, stickers, vegan food and other productions, making the presence of comrades from the region and from more distant latitudes felt.

Saturday 9 November

Together with the bookfair, the Solidarity on the Skin event took place once again, this one-day flash tattoo event in solidarity with our imprisoned comrades.

Scribbled on insubordinate bodies and accomplices with those who fight against the state/capital and are now kidnapped in prisons.

The two tattoo machines of @marceloarakno and @Juwtattoostudio ran non-stop throughout the day until the last moment when the salon closed. All the money raised (1,100 reais) from the tattoos and other contributions went to our comrades Mônica and Francisco imprisoned in Chile.

The fair opened its schedule of activities with the presentation of the zine Anarchists in Palestine and the stateless solution translated by Pandemia Distro, which presented the texts that make up the publication in an exchange of ideas.

Also in the morning, another compa from Rio de Janeiro led another presentation and debate titled “International Anarchism and the Anarchist Movement in Brazil”.

The anti-speciesist restaurant Aurora provided us with plentiful and well-seasoned vegan food, nourishing our bodies for the afternoon’s activities.

The hall and patio continued to welcome people who circulated among the stalls. Activities that began with the exchange of ideas titled “Acting Anarchically in Contexts of Crisis: Enhancing the Collapse of the Civilising Project”, together with the provocation “At Every Crossroads, Our Path is Anarchy!”, culminating in a participatory discussion in a circle.

Throughout the afternoon, the Giant Soap Bubbles Workshop enchanted all generations with the fleeting flight and explosions of the giant soap bubbles.

Following the initial incitement and debate, two more publications and two books were presented. Foda-se Black Friday translated and edited by Pandemia Distro, Esse ruptura não é de hoje by Dani Eizirik/Jambalú, from Editora Riacho and the books De Luto em Luta, an anthology of texts, poems and short stories by Louise Michel and Uma Casa Viva by Andrea Staid, published and presented by Barricada de Livros in Portugal. All presentations were accompanied by lively exchanges of ideas.

A fraternal and sharp environment against expressions of authoritarianism generated an afternoon of meetings and promotion of anarchist ideas and practices, with the fair itself being an embodiment of this disposition.

The day culminated with the exchange of ideas In order to create new worlds, it is necessary to abort unwanted worlds, bringing a look “from our wombs and our land” with the verve of a compa from Uruguay.

The last activity was a video debate The expansion of the digital frontier: Agribusiness and peasant resistance to the advance of surveillance capitalism. The activity began by stirring the memories of those who participated, jointly building a timeline of agriculture with various facts remembered. Then the video was shown, ending with a round table debate.

CHINA decrees ZERO tariffs for Global South as Trump threatens to DOUBLE them to 100%

China has taken a significant step in its global cooperation strategy by implementing zero tariffs from December 1 2024 for products from least developed countries (LDCs).

by Insurgente.org on 13th December 2024 via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FbM Telegram t.me/thefreeonline

Solar Energy Illuminates Darkest nights of Africa

The Chinese relief measure, which covers all tariff lines, applies to countries with a per capita income of less than $1,018 and with which it maintains diplomatic relations.

Biden’s Tariff Hikes on Chinese EVs to 100%: Protectionism Security, and Climate Goals

In practice, this policy benefits more than 30 nations, mainly African, and seeks to promote economic development by facilitating the access of their products to the vast Chinese market.

In addition, it highlights China’s position among emerging economies in promoting more equitable trade. China has long experience in rescuing 800 Million of its own citizens from dire poverty.

Mali Solar demonstration village

After Assad: Ireland’s Role in Fueling Syria’s New Islamist Wave

After Assad: Ireland’s Role in Fueling Syria’s New Islamist Wave

The downfall of the al-Assad regime is being treated as a Syrian Berlin Wall moment within Irish diplomatic circles as evidenced by upbeat statements by An Taoiseach and similar signaling by the DFA.

Away from traditional Irish foreign policy stomping grounds in Lebanon and East Africa Dublin has played a small but measurable role in the thirteen-year-long slog of a conflict such as extending a line of funding to the Islamist-controlled Bab al-Hawa crossing.

From the hawkish Barry Andrews MEP who vocally pushed for a no-fly-zone in support of rebel forces during his tenure at GAOL to the mingling of Irish Trotslyists with Sunni militants, contrary to our national interest, Ireland has pushed and pushed for the demise of Baathism in Syria.

Increasingly subsumed to the backroom writ of the Democratic wing of the U.S. foreign policy establishment Syria has been ground zero in the weaponisation of Irish humanitarian networks similar to our recent blunders in Ethiopia and the backing of a doomed rebellion to the vexation of our traditional partners in Addis Ababa.

While Ireland has been spared the brunt of the Syrian exodus unlike Germany (a ballpark 2,500 Syrian refugees have been settled into the Republic) the conflict has also been a test run for semi-covet Islamic civil society networks operating in the orbit of Clonskeagh mosque.

Similarly, Cork’s Islamic Cultural Center is financed by the same Qatari coffers that have backed terrorism in the Levant for over a decade, which is a testament to the interwoven nature of Gulf money and Sunni extremism.

While it can be argued with some effect that the al-Assad regime had driven itself into the ground after decades of despotism neither Ireland, Europe nor Syria itself will likely benefit from the sectarian blackhole that will certainly emerge in the wreckage of the Baathist order.

A consequence of the neutering of Iran and Hezbollah and a geopolitical necessity to open a new front against Putinism in the Middle East, Assad is a victim of his tyranny as much as the billions thrown at him by a variety of enemy capitals from Ankara to Tel Aviv.

It’s back to the future season this Christmas with blowback expected to the citizenry and asylum departments of Europe following the collapse of one of the Arab world’s last semi-secular governments in Damascus.

While Ireland remains a relative backwater for state-funded Islamic extremism, at least in public, the two decades since the War on Terror commenced illustrates time and time and again how our lack of a security infrastructure.

Contrary to the jubilant tweeting from Iveagh House and the Department of Taoiseach Ireland’s interests lie with a safe, stable, and secular Syria and the wider Levant, something that we have lobbied specifically against with a foreign policy nexus increasingly captured by outside powers.

There is no positive spin for Ireland nor Europe in the days after the implosion of the Assad dynasty in Damascus with 13 years of dodgy aid work and blind negligence to the evolving problem of Islamism paving the way for another chapter of asylum madness.

rogue regime technocrat

@hamiolhs