Rank and file hero who led Mt Isa miners' strike
December 5, 2009
pat mackie

http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/rank-and-file-hero-who-led-mt-isa-miners-strike-20091204-kb1b.htm

Pat Mackie.

Pat Mackie, 1914-2009.

When in 1964 the Queensland government of Sir Francis Nicklin decided to call on all its powers to crush a strike by Mt Isa's miners, one man stood in their way - the union radical Pat Mackie. He led the strike, inspiring the miners to keep going, in a period when police were given carte blanche to suppress them. The townspeople, in response, painted the town with swastikas by night. The 32-week strike, which extended into 1965, resulted in a victory for the miners but Mackie was targeted by an enraged federal government, which investigated ways to deport him.

This text is going to describe the historical and present meaning of the Cegielski factory in Poznan for the  workers' movement in Poland, and the history of activity of Workers' Initiative in the factory since 2002. We are also going to show the development of the strategy of wildcat strike called "p?yta" during this years, for which a key activist of IP was recently sentenced in the Polish court. Last but not least, the article shows the recent influence of the global crises in the shipyards industry
on the situation of Cegielski workers: 500 of them were fired, what mobilized others to mass demonstration in October 2009.

Since 2002 the Workers Initiative (Inicjatywa Pracownicza ? IP) has been working closely with the workers of  Cegielski plant in Poznan, successively convincing the majority of the workers of its tactics. These tactics are
based on several simple principles: end of the  conciliatory politics towards the enterprise management which were conducted here by trade unions; assurance of full access of the workers to information on the situation of the enterprise as well as on the situation of particular

Reds invaded Afghanistan!
Imagine that! if you can,
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the brave freedom fighting Mujahiddin.
Their forces we both trained and equipped,
but 9/11 something slipped
- ‘twas a failure of intelligence