For those in the Pacific Northwest area

[pnorman]

(Just received this from the Pacific NW Labor History Association)

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URBAN WORK: November 2006
by Ross Rieder. President of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association, and union trainer, blends insights, reading and gleanings on current developments, info bites from friends with the intent of helping trade unionists and supporters of all workers shape the labor movement's future.
We try not to duplicate postings of URBAN WORK. If we have, please feel free to inform us.
Instructions on unsubscribing are at the bottom of UW.

2007 Labor History Conference: Portland, Oregon is the place. IBEW Local 48, 15937 NE Airport Way, Portland OR 97230. Theme: “A New Look at Solidarity”. Papers sought on discrimination, incorporating cultural change in the labor movement, comparative labor law, international connections, etc. Oh yes, the dates are May 4-5, 2007.


Labor tidbits:

Some Friends: We recently mailed our 2007 labor history calendar to our 2006 members, a membership benefit! Thanks to all who have already sent their 2007 PNLHA dues; we've got a good start on the new year! Keep it coming, please.

PNLHA Member publishes: congratulations to PNLHA Oregon member Michael Munk whose soon-to-be-published THE PORTLAND RED GUIDE will be published by Portland State University Ooligan Press ([e-mail]). “THE PORTLAND RED GUIDE links notable radicals and their organizations and activities to physical sites associated with them. It honors those that the mainstream histories of Portland largely ignore.” We look forward to copies being available at our May conference.

In celebration of a decade of singing for and about working people,
The Seattle Labor Chorus is proud to announce an evening in concert with
Si Kahn. Contact Janet Stecher at [e-mail] or 206-524-7753

Friday, December 15, 2006 at 7:30 pm
University Unitarian Church
6556 - 35th Ave. NE, Seattle
$15 General, $8 Low Income
Advance tickets recommended

For more info about the artists: www.sikahn.com or www.seattlelaborchorus.org

A portion of the proceeds will benefit Grassroots Leadership, a southern-based national organization that works to defend democracy, enhance the public good and stop the erosion of the public sphere. www.grassrootsleadership.org

The More Things Change…: I'm sure our readers know the rest of the old adage that heads this paragraph. After listening to an academic presentation recently on some future structuring of our union movement, I was reminded that the more things change, the more they are the same. The presenter noted that temporary job agencies were a crucial factor in replacing union control or influence on the job site and in the job market. He stated that the answer to this situation is more union control of job availability, training and information sharing.

I had just recently made a presentation to a large gathering of IBEW leaders meeting in Spokane. They wanted to hear about the 1909-10 Spokane Free Speech Fight.

Here's some information about that event and what lead up to it. In the Spokane area in 1909 they didn't call them temporary job agencies; they called them Job Sharks. The JSs would send 100 people out to 10 jobs, after taking the necessary fees, of course. A traveling worker could spend his stake to get a job only to discover that either the job didn't exist or that he'd get laid off from it when the next wave of workers arrived. And, it was discovered, the hirers of labor in the logging camps were getting a cut of the fee paid by the workers to the JSs. To make a long and great story much shorter, after about a year's struggle, including workers being busted for speaking and protesting on Spokane street corners, the Industrial Workers of the World, Spokane Organizing Committee, settled with basic union control of the job availability (a hiring hall), training and information sharing…plus the city fathers were convinced to eliminate the anti-free speech ordinance from the books, returning Spokane to constitutional observance and accomplishing an IWW social unionism goal.

A PART OF THE UNION is broadcast each third Tuesday at 5.00 p.m. from KSER-FM, 90.7 (Everett, WA). It is produced by Bill Johnston, Ross Rieder, and Roger Yockey. The November edition will be heard on November 21. The boys will interview Bob Baugh, Director of the AFLCIO Industrial Union Department and former Secretary Treasurer of the Oregon AFLCIO. More music commemorating the passing of Labor Troubadour Joe Glazer will be heard, too.

Reserve your 2007 Pacific Northwest Labor History Calendars - Our 28th Edition!!
1 $14.00 including postage
2-49 $ 9.00 each
50-149 $ 6.75 each
150-299 $ 5.75 each
Prices do not include necessary shipping except for single calendars.
Quantity______ Ship to:
Name/Local
Address City State Zip Tel/Fax/Email

You may order by email ([e-mail]) or by telephone [phone]). We will invoice you including any necessary shipping charges. Calendar is published by Pacific Northwest Labor History Association (PNLHA).
Mail Payment to PNLHA, 27920 68th Av E, Graham, WA 98338
For further information: Tel: [phone] (cell)
or 253.875.9498 or Email: [e-mail]

“$29.50 (w/postage) for 3 Great Calendars. Thank you.
They make a great gift!” Amy Frazee, Colville, WA

Good Reads: I don't know how it happened but I seem to have been put on the list for newly published books at Berrett-Koehler Publishers. The two latest books are SCREWED The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class by Thom Hartmann, a Portland, Oregon Air America talk show host, and Capitalism 3.0 A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons by Peter Barnes, a co-founder of Working Assets. From the top, let me tell you that you should read these two books.

Hartmann describes how the conservatives (cons) have worked hard to overturn the economy that FDR, Truman and Eisenhower built. They haven't “freed” the market; they've created market rules and conditions that value corporations over people. He makes a stirring argument for why we need a labor movement to protect the existence of the middle class. He notes “Cons suggest that when consumers pool their risk with a private, for-profit corporation to protect personal property, it is called 'insurance' and it's a good thing; but when citizens pool their risk with the government to guarantee health care, retirement, and a social safety net, that is 'socialism' and should be 'privatized.' “ That means you and I get screwed.

Barnes' little book (about 175 pages) is a design for recoding and reprogramming capitalism from the limited bottom lines concerns for profit maximizing and return to the shareholders (Capitalism 2.0) to a less anti-social Capitalism 3.0. That's a really short description, but it's worth your finding a copy to understand how we can have a relatively free economy and still not destroy the planet.

Congress recently appropriated more than $300 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq. Simply stated in monetary terms, we are spending *$8 billion per month* in Iraq with no end in sight. That's *$2 billion per week*, or *$267 million per day*, or *$11 million per
hour*. So…now can we spend some money on health care or public education?


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Ross K. Rieder, President
Pacific NW Labor History Association
27920 68th Av E, Graham WA 98338
253.875.9498 — cell: 206.406.2604

"A corporation is an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil's Dictionary.


pnorman