labor

Shamus Cooke 

If one were to honestly assess Occupy's current strengths and weaknesses as a movement, confusion must be the inevitable result. This is because Occupy is not one movement, but an umbrella term that encompasses several different groups that have varied aims, organizational structures, and gaping theoretical differences.

Occupy may not be dead, but its power as a powerful social movement has surely been splintered into a dozen or so mini-movements. For example, a good, broad definition of a social movement is a large group of people who collectively try to achieve certain agreed on goals.

December 2011

Following Dec. 12 West Coast Port Blockade

Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast!

Occupy protesters blockade the port of Oakland, California, December 12. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Class War on the West Coast Docks

DECEMBER 28 – Following the nationally coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego and the port of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico. In Oakland, California, where 30,000-40,000 marchers shut down the port on the evening of November 2, this time hundreds blocked port entrances in the early morning and several thousand demonstrators occupied the dock area in the evening, shutting down shipping for the entire day. Key terminals were blockaded in Seattle and Portland. Solidarity rallies were held from New York to Honolulu and Tokyo, Japan. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful – this time.

Joe Hill — labor organizer, musician, song writer, revolutionary — was executed in 1915 by the state of Utah for a crime that many believe he did not commit. Now there's proof.

July 5, 2011

Review, The Man Who Never Died:  The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon, by William M. Adler

Review by Richard Myers

Free Gary Johnson!  Overturn the Convictions of Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, Collette Connolly!  Hands off Christopher Doyon!

End Laws making it Illegal for the Homeless to Sleep at Night!

Here's something the history books left out: In 1921, more than 10,000 West Virginia coal miners rose up in resistance to coal companies who refused to allow miners to unionize. It was the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War. This uprising, which took place in Logan County, West Virginia, is known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. The miners were met with a private army of police funded by coal companies, who employed, among other things, World War One planes to drop bombs and gas.