AMERICAN LABOUR:

IWW TRUCKERS NEED YOUR SUPPORT:

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an American syndicalist union, has been organizing truckers in the states of North Carolina and Virginia for the last little while. Now these workers are becoming the victims of retaliation on the part of the bosses. Here is an appeal from the IWW website for solidarity with these workers.

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Emergency Appeal – Funds Needed Immediately For IWW Truckers:
As many of you know the IWW has been organizing Truck Drivers in Eastern North Carolina and Virginia for much of the past year. In response to our growing power and planned founding convention this upcoming weekend, the bosses have begun firing the union's leadership. Two log drivers and five container haulers have lost their job over the past two days.

The union is already discussing legal and direct action means to fight these unjust firing, but right now we need funds to support our fired drivers. These drivers have families to support and this is a part of the country where economic opportunities are very limited. Please offer whatever you can, drivers are counting on you.

Checks can be sent to the Freight Truckers Organizing Committee at PO Box 274, Waukegan, IL 60079. Please include "emergency relief" in the memo line.

We are in the process of setting a PayPal Acct for online donations. You will be informed as soon as it is ready.

Thank you and please be generous.

***Past Press Releases from the Freight Truckers Organizing Committee:NC Truckers Form Union, Hold Work Stoppage - United Truckers Cooperative to Picket Outside of Weyerhaeuser Mills

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4486

***NC Truckers to Formalize Union Over MLK Weekend - Negotiating Committee Already Formed in Preparation for Talks

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4505
Related Links
Motor Transport Workers Industrial Union 530

Paypal:
http://www.iww.org/unions/dept500/iu530

INTERESTING ITEMS FROM ANOTHER LOCAL BLOG:
Another local blog from here in the world's freezer box, good ol' Winnipeg, Ecology and Participatory Democracy, has published a couple of interesting articles on the continuing struggle by the people of the community of Grassy Narrows to prevent industrial clearcut logging on their traditional lands. Grassy Narrows is a small native community of about 1,000 band members located about 80 kilometers north of Kenora, Ontario. Over the years they have endured a lot including violations of their treaty rights, the theft of their children by residential schools, forced relocation, flooding of their traditional burial grounds and wild rice gathering sites by hydroelectric dams and mercury poisoning due to the actions of a paper mill upstream from their community. The latest assault on these people is that the Ontario government has leased their traditional lands for logging by corporations such as Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi. About 50% of their traditional lands have now been clearcut. After logging the cut areas are sprayed with herbicides and replanted by a monoculture of tree farms. These "replacement forests" are devoid of the plants and even the wildlife that the people of Grassy Narrows have traditionally relied upon to support themselves.




Last July the people of Grassy Narrows and their supporters took to blocking highways to protest this continuing attack on their way of life. A total of 21 people were charged with "mischief" because of the two blockades. Ecology and Participatory Democracy gives a report about the latest charges against 5 of these protesters. The trial of two of them has been set over to March 12th. The other three, all from one local family resident in Grassy Narrows, have refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the court. Their case has been adjourned to Feb 26th. For further details see Ecology and Participatory Democracy.




If you want to learn more about the history and struggles of the people of Grassy Narrows go to the Friends of Grassy Narrows site or the Free Grassy Narrows site.





In a totally different vein another local blogger, The Vindicated Anarchist, has a hilarious blog on 'No Fashion at 40 Below'. There's no fashion in Winnipeg at any time, but our sartorial habits get even more ridiculous as we approach the point where carbon dioxide may precipitate out of the air. Ah..."but its a dry ice cold". Go over for a chuckle.
Molly