Industrial Workers of the World

Today Sunday Feb 8th 2009 programme focus was on "organising the unorganised" the international students, many from Indian sub-continent. These "sub-contractors" slave away getting abused in the taxi-industry. They formed the Victorian tax-drivers association after being ignored by the Transport Workers Union as being too difficult. Liz Thompson an activist is interviewed by Colm McNaughton

http://www.3cr.org.au/sticktogether

related: Report from last Thursday’s taxi driver meeting* Liz Thompson at 7:49 pm on Monday, June 23, 2008 http://www.paulvoermans.com/oldlw/2008/06/23/reportback-from-taxi-driver-meeting

TAXI drivers have warned Wednesday’s snap city blockade could happen again. Blockade organiser Mohammed Jama said cab drivers had been neglected for too long and were prepared to further disrupt the city to get what they wanted. “From now on, if we are not getting what we want we will fight for our right anytime, any place, anywhere,” he said.

http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=1114

TaxiVoice is online social site for taxi drivers of entire world especially those who are working in Australia. TaxiVoice has been developed so that taxi drivers who work 24/7 should have there own voice to tell entire world that how it feels to do this job. TaxiVoice site has not been developed by any big co-operation or by any government funding it has been and will be developed only by taxi driver.

http://taxivoice.com.au/ more:

A book that may be of interest on this issue is “Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism in New York City” by Biju Mathew, an organiser with the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance, which was formed in response to collusion between the official AFL-CIO union that ‘represented’ cab drivers and the taxi bosses. The Alliance had some spectacular early successes, beginning with a 24,000 strong strike in 1998 against harassment by city officials. It is a model that has since been replicated in other U.S. cities, with varying degrees of success.

Chapter headings: 1. Roots of Victory: The Taxi Strikes of 1998 2. Horse Hiring: Abolition and Return 3. The Age of Greed, or What’s Neoliberalism Got to Do with It? 4. The Reinvention of the Yellow Cab 5. Punish and Discipline: Race in the New Urban Space 6. The Borders of Globalization: Negotiating the Metropolis 7. Imperial Amnesia

previous stick together show Stick Together | 26 Jan 2009 This show is dedicated to the issue of Palestine. Riyad al Adassi, a nurse and gaza resident, as well as founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Anthony Lowenstein. We finish up the show reading Marmoud Darwish’s poem, On this Earth – in both arabic and english. File Download (27:38 min / 5 MB)

http://podcast.3cr.org.au/audio/3CRCast-2009-01-25-92489.mp3

Sundays at 10 - 10.30AM. Repeated Thursdays 6 - 6.30AM. Australia's only national radio show focussing on union and workplace justice issues. Broadcast each week on the Community Radio Network, the satellite service of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, to stations nationally Wednesdays at 6.04PM. Presented by Colm McNaughton, Elanor McInerney, John Davis and Elena McMaster.

stick.together@hotmail.com

other transport industry links http://sparksweb.110mb.com/

http://www.vigilancebulletin.org/Links.htm

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A note of appreciation from the rich Let's be honest: you'll never win the lottery. On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it — you're a member of the working caste. Sorry! As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you.

That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America. Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us — and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while.

Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people. Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work! You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo.

So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold." Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits.

And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening — instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Jews," Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation. We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!

Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system — robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself. So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Thanks so much for "knowing your place" — without even knowing it! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%