#Worldwide Information Blogger #LucSchrijvers: Update: #anarchist information from all over the #world - FRIDAY 29 MAY 2020

Today's Topics:

  
 1.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #305 - Syndicalism,
      Union freephone number: Hello comrades, boho... (fr, it,
      pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  awsm.nz - Australia: Jura Targeted (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  US, WSA ideas and action: Slaughterhouse Fight: A Look at
      the Hormel Strike By Steve Boyce, Jake Edwards and Tom Wetzel
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Greece, "dynian horse" APO: [PATRAS] Solidarity rally for
      hunger strikers to death in Turkey [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Britain, ACG statement on the lockdown and its easing
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  Britain, Class War Daily MaY 25 - Cummings and Goings
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1


Like the CGT, the Union Syndicale Solidaires has, from the first days of confinement, opened a hotline. Hundreds of workers wanting to
defend themselves called her. First assessment of the experience. ---- " Hello, I'm calling you because I'm a roofer in a construction
company, and I need information. We have a colleague who is sick from Covid-19 where I work, the chief says that since everything has been
cleaned up, that we can continue to work, but we, in the team, we are afraid, we would like to know what that we can do. " ---- This is
typically the kind of appeal that the "hotline" of Solidarity receives each day. Since March 30, hundreds of workers, mostly from the
private sector, but also from the public service, have called him to find out about their rights and ask for help to protect their lives and
their working conditions. job. This shows the usefulness of this kind of tool.

Reaching the most threatened fringes of the workforce
With him, it is a question of touching the fringes of the less unionized wage-earners, and whose rights are the most threatened: temporary
workers, employees in shops, in the building and public works and more generally in the industrial sector, in SMEs as in public services. It
is also those who are immediately exposed to the virus who call: health and social service workers.

For some, it is the concern that pushes them to call: prevention and safety measures are not respected in the company, they and they will
work "the ball in the belly" at the idea of being contaminated· es or contaminate those around them. For others, in the absence of a union
presence at the workplace, the boss keeps the employees in the dark: on the situation of the company, the partial activity, the derogations
from the Labor Code in paid leave matters... Sometimes it is even staff representatives who call for information before meeting with the
managers.

The first assessment of this hotline is positive: it will have helped hundreds of employees to self-organize to defend their rights and take
charge of their situation. In negative, it recalls an obvious fact: where there is not already a union section formed by a few combative
employees, it is disarray at the first blow. We then pay dearly for the work of self-organization that we did not "before".

Libertarian Communists of Solidaires

The toll free number: 0805 372 134.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Numero-vert-syndical-Allo-camarades-bobo

------------------------------

Message: 2



AWSM Note: The following is an excerpt from the latest newsletter produced by Jura Books, an Anarchist bookshop in Sydney, Australia. ---- A
few weeks ago someone smashed a window at Jura Books. We don't know the identity of the culprit, but it wouldn't be the first time the
shop's been targeted by Nazis, and unfortunately it probably won't be the last. While the rest of us are busy organising mutual aid,
fighting evictions, and fundraising for workers who've lost their jobs, it seems like the local fash have nothing better to do than break
Jura's windows. ---- We'd like to thank all the neighbours who got in touch to let us know about the window, and helped us board it up.
We're so grateful to be part of a strong supportive community of folks who look out for each other! ---- Thankfully it was just a window
this time, and windows are easily fixed. But please keep your eyes open and beware of any far-right and White supremacist activity in your
neighbourhood.

Stay safe, look after each other, and don't let fascists exploit this global pandemic to spread racism and bigotry!

https://www.jura.org.au/

https://awsm.nz/?p=5415

------------------------------

Message: 3



Note: As the COVID crisis endangers us in our work places, we fight in solidarity with our fellow workers in the meat packing industry who
face this virus with little or no protections. We have been looking for past analysis of tactics as part of our solidarity work and we saw
that on the IWW website they re-posted the following article originally published in Ideas and Action # 7. We are grateful for their
re-posting of this, and it prompted us to read it over again in relation to current struggles in the meat packing industry. ---- In this
article, the authors examine the Hormel Meat Packing Strike in the mid 1980's; one of the most important struggles against concessions in
that decade. It was fought out at the beginning of a downward slide in wages and conditions in the meatpacking industry, which has led to
the conditions that existed both leading up to COVID-19 and that continue during the crisis.

The Hormel Strike led to an effort of meat packing workers to form a new, national worker controlled union in that industry - based on
experience of the way the UFCW paid apparatus acts to thwart the development of an effective struggle against the employers. The Hormel
strikers proposed a new national union that would not have power concentrated in a national executive board, but would have coordination
through a rank-and-file delegates council. Domination of UFCW by a top down, paid apparatus is a reason workers need to build a new
self-managed union in the retail and food processing industries.

When the airline unions and the AFL-CIO let the air controllers go down to defeat, the message to the employing class was, "You can do what
you want; we won't organize a fighting solidarity."

The employers' concessions drive soon became an epidemic. Yet there have been a number of militant, if isolated, struggles by workers who
have put up a strong resistance. They have often had to fight against the union hierarchy as well as the employer. The Watsonville cannery
strike is one of these struggles, the Hormel strike is another.

Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), made up of workers at Hormel's main plant at Austin, Minnesota, has
attempted to break out of isolation in several ways: a "Corporate Campaign" that tried to bring consumer pressure against Hormel's main
bank, a consumer boycott of Hormel meat products, and by roving pickets sent to other Hormel plants.

In their union meetings and rallies, in their travels to other unions around the country, the message of the Austin meat packers is that
it's time to re-orient the labor movement, it's time for a real fight against employer arrogance. In their collective defiance of the heads
of the UFCW International Union, the Hormel strikers have raised the question, Who shall run the labor movement, the careerist, top-down
hierarchy of the AFL-CIO-type unions, or the rank and file whose lives are directly affected?

As of June[1986], P-9ers were claiming that only about 700-to-800 people were working in the Austin plant; the company, on the other hand,
claims it now has 1,050 people working. Over 1,500 had been employed there before the strike. But the company claims it can run the plant
with only 1,050 people. The 400 former P-9 members who returned to work after Hormel restarted production in January were particularly
damaging to the strike since they had skills and experience needed to bring production back to normal levels.

Hormel recently announced that its profits were down 25.7% from the second quarter of last year, due to the strike. Nonetheless, they're
still making money and hundreds of P-9 defectors and new hires continue to labor in the Austin plant on the company's terms.

After all the media attention and the hundreds who have attended the support rallies, what's left is the remnants of a proud local union
fighting a lonely battle against company greed and AFL-CIO betrayal. After a year-long corporate campaign and ten months on strike, it
wasn't supposed to end this way.

The Packinghouse Division of the UFCW was the inheritor of the traditions of the CIO United Packinghouse Workers Union (UPWA) and the AFL
Amalgamated Meatcutters Union. The labor struggle in the meatpacking industry has faced some of the most brutal, dangerous, racist and
unsanitary conditions in American industry. What was achieved, through several decades of struggle, were improved conditions and a national
wage standard adhered to by all producers. The national standard was necessary to prevent wages from being undercut by competition from
low-wage producers. The militant traditions and post-World War II prosperity had made these improvements possible.

By 1983 the eroded vestiges of this reality had collapsed. (See Strategy of Appeasement.) The rule of thumb in meatpacking today is that
each company will squeeze or discard the UFCW for the lowest wages and the worst conditions it can get.

More Injuries, Lower Wages

The workers of Hormel's Austin operations were first pressured to give concessions in the 1978 contract, which included a rigorous
"no-strike" clause. At that time local P-9 was being led by a more pro-company case of officials, who decided to break away from the Hormel
master contract in exchange for a supposed guarantee that there would be no more cuts at Austin. The $20 million in concessions helped to
finance Hormel's new $100 million plant in Austin.

Only 1,750 workers were employed in the new plant when it opened in 1982 - less than half as many as worked in the old plant. Some of the
new technology had inadequate safety features - like automatic back saws with no safety guards. The plant seemed to be designed with little
thought for the people who be working there. Instead of work stands that could be adjusted to the worker's height, as in the old plant, the
new plant had fixed work stations. Management was talking about getting a 20% increase in productivity out of the new facility. As one
commentator has described it:

Everyone's work was changed, sped up, pressured, and tied to external pacing and new standards. Ham-boners, for instance, were required to
do 93 an hour. The rate was so fast that they could only sharpen their knives on the upswing, before plunging downward into another ham.
("The Safety Issue in the Hormel Strike," Pete Rachleff, Labor Notes #88.)

The new plant experienced a 120% increase in worker injuries.

In 1982 the UFCW's Lewie Anderson negotiated a new national contract for the Hormel plants. The summary of the contract provided by the
International said that the agreement continued the policy of wages being adjusted to the national standard and prohibited wage reductions.
It was on that understanding that the contract was ratified by Local P-9.

But in the fall of '83, Hormel decided to take advantage of the concessions fever then sweeping the industry and announced that it was
lowering wages in pursuit of the UFCW's "national standard" which had already become a pathetic joke. Hormel was not motivated by financial
losses since it was - and remains - highly profitable.

What the surprised membership of P-9 discovered, when they got a copy of the contract from the International, was that the alleged provision
prohibiting wage reductions was missing. What had been signed by the UFCW was not what had been sold to the local's members. People were not
happy. December of that year saw a reform slate elected for local office, including a new president, Jim Guyette, who ran on a platform of
no wage concessions.

The 1982 master contract for the Hormel plants had contained a clause that permitted re-opening the contract in 1984, before the contract's
expiration in September 1985. The UFCW had justified this as a means of regaining lost ground. But in 1984 the International proposed a
$1.69 per hour wage cut for Hormel workers outside Austin (from $10.69 to $9 per hour).

Lewie Anderson, UFCW vice-president and head of the Packinghouse Division, had negotiated the agreement that was falsely presented to P-9 as
protection against wage cuts. This time he conceded that it was going to be difficult to sell wage cuts to the Austin workers given the
profitability of the company. From the public record, it seems that brother Anderson does not engage in the truth, but this time he was
right on the mark. It was not going to be easy selling this deal.

Wages were cut in Austin from $10.69 to $8.25 per hour on October 8, 1984. Ironically, the Austin local had broken earlier - under the
previous local leadership - with the rest of the Hormel plants to negotiate separately. At that time they had gotten a better deal than
everybody else. Now the new leaders of P-9 were faced with having the lowest wages and yet they could no longer count on the united strength
of negotiating with the other Hormel locals.

Enter Ray Rogers

The immediate response to the wage reduction was a call for strike action - against the contract, the company and anybody else who was
trying to gut their wages. Knowing that help from the UFCW would be non-existent, Guyette called a New York public relations firm to ask for
help in getting the local's message across. They put him in touch with Ray Rogers and Corporate Campaign, Inc.

Ray Rogers is a man with a mission and that mission is to reshape the labor movement, for a price. Rogers is not a wealthy man but he is a
businessman and his business is providing local unions with an alternative to going on strike. He came to Austin and sold Guyette - and then
the membership - on a campaign to restore to P-9 what Hormel and the UFCW had taken away. "Strikes are obsolete," he told them. "What you
have to do is to take your power to the doorsteps of power." Ray Rogers talks fast, in his thick Boston accent, and is prone to a
cheer-leading style, as in "Give me a ‘W', give me an ‘I', give me an ‘N'; What's that spell? What's that spell?" Rogers told them again and
again that they had the power and he would help them use it. P-9 listened, and believed, and did not strike.

What P-9 members got was a $3 per week assessment to pay for a $40,000 deal with Corporate Campaign, Inc. Rogers and his staff of ten make
$425 a week with year-end bonuses of $1,000 (if business is good). The model for Corporate Campaign is Rogers' campaign for the Amalgamated
Clother and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) against J.P. Stevens, which achieved union recognition against a notoriously nonunion Southern
employer.

Rogers left ACTWU in 1981 and, with a partner, launched Corporate Campaign, Inc. as his own business. Since then his track record has been
mixed - some wins, some losses but nothing approaching the publicity of the J.P. Stevens campaign. For Rogers P-9 provided the opportunity
of another J.P. Stevens and Corporate Campaign threw themselves into this like there was no tomorrow. Protest plans for Hormel's annual
shareholders meeting panicked the executives into moving the meeting to Atlanta.

Research into Hormel's stock ties and board of directors had turned up First Bank. One of the upper Midwest's financial giants, the St.
Paul-based bank looked like the ideal location of the "doorsteps of power." First Bank was descended upon with pickets at branches in three
states and protesters at their shareholders meeting. Enormous quantities of literature were produced - from leaflets to newspapers - and
sent throughout Minnesota and beyond. Teams of volunteers went door to door canvassing in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The plan
was to get individuals, and unions and other institutions, to withdraw their funds and bombard First Bank with demands that the wage cuts at
Hormel be rescinded.

It didn't work. First Bank blandly denied that it had anything to do with management decisions at Hormel.

The corporate campaign failed because it was based on flawed assumptions. The assumption is that workers should appeal to "public opinion"
rather than to solidarity from other workers. This is done by trying to show how the targeted employer is especially unfair to its
workforce. At best this could only work to bring a particularly nasty employer up to currently prevailing level of exploitation and
arrogance among employers. In the case of the J.P. Stevens campaign, Rogers' campaign dwelled upon the fact that Stevens had more violations
of labor laws than anyone else.

But in the current climate of employer aggression, Hormel is just following the present trend, justified among business leaders as a "battle
to become more competitive." The leaders of Continental, Iowa Beef Processors, the Chicago Tribune and Phelps-Dodge would certainly not say
that Hormel is particularly "unfair" to its workers. To the employing class, Hormel's callousness and arrogance are just "smart business
practices."

Since the AFL-CIO heads see corporate campaigns as a way to avoid strikes, they actually favor them, as the J.P. Stevens campaign
demonstrates. What the UFCW International and AFL-CIO tops dislike in this case is not the corporate campaign in itself, but the fact that a
gutsy local union is charting its own course independent of the International.

The corporate campaign didn't work because it didn't stop Hormel from continuing to make money from packaging meat. To do that it was
necessary to stop production.

Within the local a core of dissenters publicly attacked Rogers and Guyette and from UFCW Region 13 headquarters came veiled threats of
putting P-9 into receivership. On National Public Radio Lewie Anderson said that the problem now at Hormel was that the workers made too
much money and this would make the company unprofitable and lead to loss of jobs. The NPR reporter commented that he sounded very much like
a company spokesman.

As long as the company still recognized the UFCW and kept wages in the $8 per hour range, nobody at the International really cared.

Among those who did care, support was growing as the contract expiration drew near. In the Twin Cities area an informal group of local union
officials, rank and file activists, sympathetic academics, revolutionary veterans of the '30s and assorted leftists had become the Metro
Support Committee. This committee then initiated the Naional Rank and File Against Concessions (NRFAC) to give P-9 leaders a national platform.

On the company side, active preparations were underway for a strike. P-9's roving pickets against First Bank were being monitored and
photographed for future legal action against the local. The line producing Hormel's most popular new product - hot dogs stuffed with chile -
was dismantled and moved to Houston. $80,000 worth of barbed wire was purchased and a marketing agreement signed with FDL Foods in Iowa.
This last step was the most significant in that it would prevent Hormel from shortages of product should the Austin plnat be shut down.

The shut down came on August 7th and stretched through the fall and into winter. The Metro Support Committee organized caravans bringing
tons of food to Austin, as did Region 13 of the UFCW. While receiving strike pay of $40 from the International and $25 from Region 13, money
was running low in Austin and striking families were facing a grim Christmas.

Local P-9 had wanted to restore the old $10.69 per hour standard wage. The differential in pay between what P-9 wanted and what Hormel
offered had been steadily narrowed by arbitrators' rulings before the strike and mediators proposals after the strike began. The final
company offer waas for $10 per hour for the current workforce. Though material had been published on the safety problems in Hormel's new
plant, Corporate Campaign's overwhelming emphasis had been on the money issue - a profitable company cutting wages. They suddenly had to
scramble to explain that there was a lot more at stake than 69 cents.

The proposed contract gave Hormel a free hand as far as work rules went and did cut wages for new hires to $8 per hour (a "two-tier"
system). Region 13 director Joe Hansen made it clear in his announcement that this was the best deal P-9 woudl get and that the UFCW would
conduct a mail ballot. Guyette and 150 strikers shouted him down and announced that they would take their own vote. The proposed contract
was defeated by a small majority in both ballots.

Hormel had already announced that a defeat of this proposal would trigger the opening of the plan with scabs and as many P-9 members as were
willing to cross picket lines. This eventuality had never really been confronted or planned for by local leaders. Some believed that Hormel
could not bring in a large number of scabs into such a small community (population 22,000). Others thought Rogers would launch a new
corporate campaign targeting fast food restaurants or other major customers of Hormel. Rogers began to threaten mass civil disobedience and
the media started to call him the Martin Luther King of the labor movement. The UFCW replied by calling him the Ayatollah of Austin. William
Wynn - the president of the UFCW International - publically denounced Guyette, accusing him of leading P-9 on a suicide mission and appealed
to the local membership to repudiate the strike and go back to work.

Hormel attempted to re-open the plant in January. The day the plant opened there was no mass civil disobedience or publicity campaigns.
Instead there were hundreds of union men and women blocking the gates and the scabs did not pass that day or the next. By the end of the
week the National Guard was in place and the area around the plant was placed under martial law.

Roving Pickets

P-9 then sent out roving pickets to spread the strike and shut down production at the other plants in the Hormel chain. Hormel was
particularly vulnerable to this strategy since it is not a conglomerate that can bleed off profits from one industrial division to prop up
another during a strike. All that Hormel does is package meat and it has been doing this very profitably from 1891 to the present.

On January 25th the Hormel plant at Ottumwa, Iowa was shut down by a march of hundreds of pickets to the gates. Hormel retaliated by firing
478 workers who refused to cross the picket lines. The plant normally employs 800 workers. With a large part of the workforce locked out,
there was little production at the Ottumwa plant. On February 8th a rally of some 2,000 unionists, their families and supporters was held in
Ottumwa. Support in the community is fairly strong. The mayor of the town told the rally, "You've got the right not to cross that picket
line." Another mass rally in support of the Ottumwa workers took place on May 10th, including hundreds of P-9 members bused in from Austin.

The shop stewards in the Ottumwa plant had been particularly instrumental in getting people to refuse to cross the picket lines set up by
the workers from Austin. Instead of backing the fired shop stewards, the UFCW has lately been organizing elections of new shop stewards
among the Ottumwa workers who weren't fire.

On February 16th about 200 pickets from P-9 showed up at the FDL Foods plant in Dubuque. The local union president, Mel Maas, stood at the
plant gates, along with representatives from the UFCW International, telling workers this was not a sanctioned picket and that they should
go to work. Nonetheless, about half of the 900 workers on the morning shift were persuaded to stay out.

The roving pickets had less success at the other Hormel plants. Only about 65 workers stayed out when pickets showed up at the Fremont,
Nebraska plant. When the pickets arrived at the Hormel operation in Atlanta, they discovered that the UFCW had only a minimal organizing
effort going on. The UFCW only held union meetings every four months and the location of the meetings was 40 miles from the plant.

Local P-9 had originally considered sending out pickets to other plants in October. They waited until January because they were trying to
get the International's sanction for the roving pickets. They made a deal with William Wynn, who pledged to approve the roving pickets if
negotiations with Hormel failed.

Though the negotiations did eventually raise the wage offer to $10 per hour, the company's "final offer" in January still contained a lot of
givebacks that would essentially give management the right to do anything it wanted in the plant, and wipe out all the past practices and
procedures (e.g. seniority rights) that defended workers against arbitrary management power. But when P-9 members rejected this contract in
January, Wynn reneged on his pledge and refused to sanction roving pickets. His pledge was exposed as a dishonest stalling tactic.

On February 15th 3,000 strike supporters from unions throughout the midwest marched in the streets of Austin and ralled at the high school.
Speaker after speaker from National Rank and File Against Concessions pledged undying support for a fight to the end. The pro-strike
community is a minority in Austin but they were there in force - from infants to old men. Workers from all industries were there, carrying
signs, union banners and the American flag. Even boring speeches were interrupted by standing ovations again and again.

Everywhere in that crowded auditorium you could feel it, that we all need something, something diffferent, something new from the labor
movement, and maybe this is where it will start. Everyone wants to believe it. After the rally people filed out, pushing their way past
legions of Trotskyists selling newspapers, pamphlets, and discussion bulletins.

Shortly afterwards in Bal Harbor, Florida, the AFL-CIO Executive Committee refused to hear an appeal by Rogers and Guyette for an AFL-CIO
endorsed boycott of Hormel products. Later, William Wynn and Lane Kirkland stood cheek to jowl for the press while Wynn dencounces the
"fascist tactics" of P-9. Kirkland lets it be known that from now on the AFL will try to intervene in disputes between Internationals and
insurgent locals. The official disapproval sent a chill wind through the leftwing cheerleaders who had been hailing P-9 and the corporate
campaign.

Bill Montross of the UFCW's research department was able to denounce the strike in the pages of In These Times ("Local P-9 Is Leading Mass
Suicide", 2/26), the Guardian ("Dissidence Isn't Always Progressive," 2/19), and Labor Notes ("UFCW International Led Fight Against
Concessions", April). Montross's hatchet job, prepared by leftists at the International's headquarters, tried to portray the UFCW as the
defender of "progressive" unionism while P-9 was denounced for "isolation, individualism, and division." In the International's eyes,
"solidarity" means obedience to their orders, even if those orders ban actual solidarity.

That this could even be considered a matter of serious debate was a disgrace. But the Communist Party registered the leftist retreat the
earliest and clearest: "The local leadership's attacks on the leadership of the UFCW has played into the hands of the corporations' union
busting strategy and will be used to split and divide other locals and be used as ammunition against the union in organizing drives..."
(Daily World, 2/6). In other words, the union apparatus must be preserved, even against the workers themselves.

On Saturday, April 12th, another 3,000-strong rally assembled in Austin, with supporters from all over the country. The rally was fired up
by the fact that 400 strikers and supporters had shut the plant down for several hours on Friday, beforre being dispersed by riot cops.

At the meeting before the Friday picketing, non-violence was stressed as it has been throughout the strike. The plan had been to block the
roads leading to the plant with circles of cars. Several hundred strikers amassed at the main gate, chanting, hurling insults at the cops.
The strikers had the advantage of numbers. But when the cops finally began to tow cars, no effort was made to stop them. Having broken
through the protective circle of vehicles, the cops moved in to arrest picketers.

Rogers' strategy towards the strike has been to push non-violent "civil disobedience," rather like Martin Luther King in the civil rights
movement or the anti-nuclear protesters who sit down in front of nuclear plants with the intention of getting arrested. Rogers preaches
non-violence because he thinks the heart of the struggle is winning support for the Hormel strikers in the eyes of "public opinion." But
many of those in this amorphous "public" are landlords, small store owners, politicians, and others whose class interests are not the same
as meatpacking workers. Meanwhile, if Hormel can successfully recruit and train a scab workforce, the company has no reason to listen to
strikers' demands. And seeing the scabs take their jobs is demoralizing for the strikers.

The problem with "civil disobedience" is its pacifism, which leaves the bosses' law and order effectively unchallenged. It takes force to
stop scabs; it can't be done by moral appeals to public opinion.

"CD" only produces arrests, it does not produce any power for the workers. Yet direct action by workers to defend their picket lines against
the job-stealing of the scabs is perfectly legitimate, no matter what capitalist legality may say about it.

Rogers argued that if the strikers didn't practice non-violence, the National Guard would be brought back in. But Democratic-Farmer-Labor
Party Governor Perpich hadd removed the National Guard in February only after hundreds of supporters from other unions had been mobilized to
support the strikers in Austin. The honorable governor was worried about the political fallout from a major confrontation between the Guard
and large groups of strike supporters.

Another twist in Rogers' emphasis upon "public opinion" is the consumer boycott of Hormel products. But the track record of consumer
boycotts in this country is not very encouraging.

If transport workers and retail clerks refused to handle Hormel products, that would be a more effective form of boycott. Most unionized
supermarket clerks belong to the UFCW. But instead of asking retail clerks to refuse to handle Hormel products, the International demanded
unconditional surrender by P-9.

Despite their sincere effort to be peaceful and avoid violence, local P-9 has been subjected to physical violence from the cops and National
Guard and many have been arrested. Meanwhile, the Twin Cities dailies describe P-9 as "rigid" and "inflexible."

After the attempt to close the plant on April 11th, Rogers was indicted under the Minnesota Criminal Syndicalism law, the first time that
statute has been invoked in decades. This law, which bans advocacy of sabotage or industrial violence to affect social change, was passed in
1917 for the purpose of outlawing the Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW had led a major strike of mine workers on the Messabi iron
ore range in Minnesota in 1916.

After announcing in March that it was ending sanction for P-9's strike the UFCW International sent a letter to P-9 members cutting off
strike benefits for strikers who refuse to go back to work on Hormel's terms. The UFCW mailing included a form letter, addressed to Hormel's
personnel manager, which states that the applicant is willing to take any job unconditionally.

Bring Back the Sit-Down Strike?

The weakness of P-9's position has been its inability to close down operations at the Austin plant. When Hormel began production in January,
it would have been possible to break into the plant and carry out a sit-down strike. At that point the strikers' numbers and enthusiasm were
at a peak, and the "forces of order" could have been taken by surprise.

A sit-down strike would have been the most effective way to shut down production and force Hormel to take the strikers' concerns seriously.
When strikers are outside on picketlines, they are an easier target for cop violence and management has a free hand inside the plant. On the
other hand, when workers are in possession of the plant, the scabs can't be brough in to carry on production. The strikers would be holding
the $100 million plant hostage. Management would think twice before ordering a cop assault to clear the plant of sit-down strikers.

A sit-down strike was how local P-9 was organized originally back in 1933. Discontented workers in the hog kill department got together with
with an experienced Wobbly (IWW) organizer, named Frank Ellis, who was working as a foreman in another department. This led to the formation
of the Independent Union of All Workers (IUAW). Ellis was one of a number of IWW butchers who migrated around the midwest from job to job in
those days.

After the IUAW went on strike against Hormel in '33, the company attempted to start up a sheep kill with scabs. At that point,

Four hundred men, many of them armed with clubs, sticks and rocks, crashed through the plant entrance, shattering the glass doors and
sweeping the guards before them. The strikers quickly ran throughout the plant to chase out non-union workers. One...group crashed through
the doors of a conference room where Jay Hormel and five company executives were meeting and declared "We're taking possession. So move
out!" (Larry Engelmann, "We Were the Poor - The Hormel Strike of 1933," Labor History, Fall, 1974.)

Though Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party governor at the time, Floyd Olson, denounced the strikers' "illegal possession of the plant," the
company threw in the towel after four days of worker occupation of the plant. The IUAW went on to become a major center for organizing
meatpacking plants in the upper midwest in the '30s. It eventually became part of the United Packinghouse Workers Union of the CIO.

The heads of the AFL-CIO unions are definitely opposed to the sit-down tactic. When the state outlaws the most effective forms of worker
action, such as sit-down strikes and refusing to handle scab goods, the union heads simply go along with this because they try to avoid any
action that may put their organization at risk or threaten to disrupt their long-standing relationships with management and government
leaders. Workers' first concern may be their on-the-job situation but the International union heads do not share those conditions and their
first concern is the survival of the union as a bureaucratic institution.

Rogers and his supporters in local P-9 preached "civil disobedience" yet a plant occupation would have been the most effective form of
"disobedience." A plant occupation may be illegal, but it is also illegal to block streets with cars. And obviously Rogers' strategy did not
avoid arrests or police violence.

A New Union in the Meatpacking Industry?

On April 14th and 15th the UFCW International held hearings on its proposal to place local P-9 in trusteeship. The rationale for the
trusteeship was local P-9's refusal of the International's order to end the strike. The International failed to provide documents and
witnesses by local P-9, which denounced the proceedings as a "sham" and a "farce."

On May 9th, the Executive Board of the UFCW International ordered a trusteeship for local P-9, with the Region 13 director Joe Hansen
appointed as the International's dictator in Austin. The UFCW's trusteeship was upheld by federal District Court judge Edward Devitt on June
2nd and the UFCW then changed the locks on the union's offices, seized all files and funds, and ousted the elected leadership. Even before
the trusteeship was imposed, Joe Hansen made an unconditional offer to Hormel for the strikers to return to work. Hormel waited until after
the trusteeship was upheld in court on June 2nd to agree to being negotiations.

Most of the actual strike support and fund-raising has been done under the auspices of the United Support Group, which is formally
independent of the union. This has not stopped the UFCW from trying to seize the support group funds, however, which indicates how
determined the UFCW is to crush P-9's rebellion.

The International leaders are attempting to set up a "dual union" of the bureaucrats, to replace the real union of P-9 strikers, and
negotiate a new constract with Hormel over the heads of the workers.

On June 9th petitions were filed with the National Labor Relations Board, signed by 800 P-9 strikers, to decertify the UFCW International in
favor of an independent union. Initially "Original P-9" was the proposed name of the independent, but the NLRB rejected this name on the
grounds that it would be confused with the official P-9, now controlled by the International's trustee. The new union's name was then
changed to "North American Meat Packers Union."

Supporters of the new independent estimate that there are between 12,000 and 30,000 meatpackers in 30 locals across the midwest who may be
willing to leave the UFCW for an independent union. Meanwhile, local P-40 in Wisconsin and local P-6 in Albert Lea, Minnesota, are refusing
to pay their per capita dues to the International until the trusteeship is removed fromm local P-9.

The history of the Hormel struggle demonstrates once again how the present top-down union Internationals are bound to be in conflict with
the rank and file who want control over their own movement and militant solidarity against the employers. To develop an effective challenge
to the employing class and unionism self-managed by the rank and file, it is going to be necessary to develop new organization.

The usual argument against a new union is that it would be "divisive" while so many other workers in the same industry remain within the
"official" union, in this case the UFCW. But surely the UFCW International has proven itself to be an obstacle to worker solidarity.
Affiliation of workers in different workplaces with the same AFL-CIO-type "international union" only guarantees subordination to a common
central bureaucracy. These vertical bureaucracies often work to oppose direct, horizontal solidarity between workers since it imposes risks
and costs (such as strike benefits) to their organizations, disrupts cozy relationships with employers, and challenges their top-down control.

We are not saying that workers should automatically avoid the AFL-CIO-type unions, even when no other mass organization is feasible. Nor are
we saying that workers should abandon the struggle within the AFL-CIO-type unions against top-down bureaucratic control and against
sell-outs. But when workers' efforts to mount an effective fight against employer power and to control their own struggle come into conflict
with the top-down hierarchies in the unions, as at Hormel, the need and opportunity for new organization is clearly demonstrated.

A workers movement guided by the principles of rank-and-file democracy, worker solidarity, and militant struggle against the employing class
is bound to develop new forms of organization, independent of the rotting corpse of American business unionism. The top-down structure of
the AFL-CIO-type unions is an albatross around the neck of the American workforce. What is needed is a new form of organization in which the
rank and file directly manage the struggle and the local organizations are linked together in horizontal, worker-to-worker solidarity.

published in Ideas & Action #7, Summer, 1986

http://ideasandaction.info/2020/05/slaughterhouse-fight-hormel-strike/

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Message: 4



SOLIDARITY TO THE UNEMPLOYED PINES UNTIL DEATH IN TURKEY -- IMMEDIATE DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR REQUIREMENTS ---- PRICE TO HELIN BÖLEK, MUSTAFA
KOÇAK AND RABRAHIM GÖKÇEK ---- SOLIDARITY TO THE 11 PLANNED TURKS AND KOURDOUS STRUGGLERS FROM THE GREEK STATE ---- On April 3, 28-year-old
contestant Helin BYlek, a member of the band GrupYorum, who was on her 288th day of hunger strike in resistance to the fascist Turkish
state, struggled to justify the band's demands for a strike to lift the ban. stop the attacks on the Idil cultural center, remove the
members of GrupYorum from the list of Turkish counter-terrorism declarations, stop the persecution against them and release all their
members imprisoned in prisons. Her partner, Ibrahim Göckçek, died on May 7 after a 323-day hunger strike, but his body could not stand it.
It was preceded on April 24 by the death of Mustafa Koçak, a member of the Popular Front, after 297 days of hunger strike inside Turkish
prisons, which he continued after his release with a request to abolish the special courts for political prisoners. We stand in solidarity
with the struggle and the just demands of Grup Yorum, until the music of the resistance, the fighters, the strikers, the protesters is not
persecuted by the Turkish state, until the narration of the struggles of the oppressed through their songs is free.

The remaining strikers, two lawyers, Ebru Timtik (138th day) and Aytaç Ün sal (108th day), as well as political prisoners Didem Akman (91st
day) and Özgür Karakaya (91st day), continue their hunger strike until their deaths . , until their demands for the acquittal of Grup Yorum
are met, for the release of the "people's lawyers" and for the abolition of all special and retaliatory political persecution and punishment.

In the same direction, on March 19, the anti-terrorist and EYP carried out a coordinated operation at the offices of the Solidarity
Committee for Political Prisoners in Turkey and Kurdistan, the People's Front of Turkey and the Anti-Imperialist Front in Exarcheia, as well
as at home. and Kurdish fighters. Armed forces of the police and anti-terrorist forces carried out 26 arrests, 11 of which turned into
pre-trial detention and arrests based on 187A for formation, participation in a terrorist organization, possession of firearms and some
misdemeanors. The 11 detainees, after being tortured, were remanded in custody in different prisons throughout Greece so that communication
with lawyers became impossible. This operation is the practical contribution of the Greek state to the Turkish services and the repressive
mechanisms for the silencing, the persecution, the imprisonment, the extermination of fighters and the repression of the struggles that are
taking place at the same time in Turkey. It is another operation against Turkish and Kurdish militants that is being added to many others,
highlighting that co-operation between the two countries' secret services is a top priority for the resistance.

We honor the memory of fighter Helin Bölek  and fighters Ibrahim Göckçek and Mustafa Koçak , who were assassinated by the Turkish state
after months of hunger strikes, fighting for the rights of the Grup Yorum group and defending the rights of the persecuted. We demand the
immediate justification of the hunger strikers to death in Turkey.  We demand the immediate release of the 11 arrested Turkish and Kurdish
militants from the Greek state, which contributes to the murderous policies of the Turkish services towards the militants. Against state and
capitalist barbarism, the oppressed and exploited in every corner of the globe, all those who are fighting, we are fighting these battles
that will build a society of equality, freedom and solidarity, until the songs of the struggle flourish and overthrow their debt. sovereign.

THE STATES WHO CALL THE PEOPLE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE

THE SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON

Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collectivities

CHANGES OF SOLIDARITY ON TUESDAY MAY 26

ATHENS: POREA TO TURKISH PRESSURE, 18:00, PROPYLAIA

THESSALONIKI: RESOURCES TO THE TURKISH PREFECTURE, 18:00, KAMARA

PATRAS: SOLIDARITY CONCENTRATION, 18.00, ESPEROS (GEORGIOU Sq.)

https://ipposd.wordpress.com/

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Message: 5



For many in the working class the lockdown has never truly existed, because society relies on our class, many have not been able to stop
working, either being forced to work at home or in many cases and more worryingly having to still go to their place of work. Some of these
are quite rightly seen as essential jobs however the pay and conditions do not reflect this, while others such as builders who are building
office blocks and luxury apartments are clearly only essential to the benefit of the capitalist system. ---- The contempt our rulers have
for these key workers is shown by the proposed public sector pay freeze, and the fact that many of these key workers are paid the minimum
wage (grandly and wrongly referred to as a ‘living wage').
Capitalism always runs on the dead bodies of workers. Right now, we are seeing how willing the Conservatives are to throw more bodies under
the wheels of the economy. What is currently happening in care services, social care and hospitals is democide against the working class,
the vulnerable, elderly and disabled. Our leaders hope to throw teachers and those who provide support in schools, as well as construction
workers (amongst others) back into the virus's path.

The government is showing its complete contempt for the working class and the vulnerable by asking people to go back to work (or keep going
to work) without proper testing, risk assessments having been undertaken, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and trace systems in place. It
is laughable that the government expects us to have faith that our employers will keep us safe because some voluntary guidance is in place.

Nothing that has happened is surprising. This government, like all of them, is a loyal servant of the ruling class, the bosses. No
government has ever put the needs of workers before profit unless the working class is strong enough and organised enough to force them to.
No government can ever be trusted.

We shall not waste our breath calling on the government to protect us. We will not appeal to their ‘better nature', by pointing out it is
the elderly, disabled, their carers and families who are most at risk. Given the current level of organisation and combativity in the
working class we also do not expect a general strike or widespread and co-ordinated resistance, although we hope to be proven very wrong.

As such we call on workers to do all they can to organise in self-defence. For all their limitations, unions may offer some defence for many
at this time and it is worth joining one that is active in your workplace, or if not, an independent union in particular the IWW, IWGB, or,
if in London, UVW or CAIWU.

Surviving under capitalism is something every worker must face. We cannot tell individuals the best way to react as we will each have to
judge our own personal circumstances and react accordingly. We can however lay out some basic principles about work. However much some
individuals might enjoy or find meaning from the labour they do, work under capitalism kills individual initiative and tries to turn
thinking, feeling human beings into slaves. All of us who work are being robbed by a parasite ruling class.

No one should ever feel any obligation to their boss or their company, and they especially should not in the current crisis. Employers do
not create work or jobs although there is a certain amount of labour that needs to be done to ensure that all people live well and happily.
It is those jobs that have really been highlighted by this crisis (i.e. those that are now considered ‘key workers'). All employers do is
grant to themselves the right to direct our labour and to organise production in a manner that profits them rather than meets the needs of
people. We must revoke this right and take for ourselves the responsibility for organising production and doing so in manner that ensures as
little work and as much benefit for all of humanity. That is the economic and political task that faces the working class.

The only way we can genuinely defend ourselves from the abuses of the ruling class is to organise.

Join us in the fight.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/05/23/acg-statement-on-the-lockdown-and-its-easing/

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Message: 6



Today in Class War Daily: https://classwar.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CW-Daily-34-200525.pdf ---- Free mask for those wanting to visit
their family during lockdown! ---- Cummings and Goings ---- Letter to the Editor
Letter to the editor... ---- Dear members of the Public, let's be clear, this is how Power works. Not only in this lockdown situation -but
in any situation at any time. The laws and rules the Elite make are only applicable to the mugs at the bottom of society, -Us. This issue
isn't about a scummy pal of Johnson's breaking a "rule", it's an illustration of how the elites who run the Capitalist system operate on a
daily basis. In other words, they treat us with the utmost contempt, and it's time we returned the favour. And please don't be mislead into
"demanding an inquiry" as a Labour MP said tonight, instead let's demand their heads on pikestaffs. Signed, A well wisher.

--------------------------------

CUMMINGS
AND
GOING

Class War Daily's political
sketch writer stays awake
all day to assess the Sunday
politics programmes and
THAT car crash briefing by
Boris Johnson.

On Saturday night it became
apparent that the Sunday
politics shows would be full of
questions regarding the Goblin
of Downing Street, Dominic
Cummings, and his lockdown
breakout farewell tour to
Durham. Some poor minister
would have to do the TV circuit
defending the indefensible.
Some poor minister would
have to do the press briefing in
the evening.
In case you haven't kept up
to date the basic story is that
while we were all in lockdown
and keeping ourselves to
ourselves, Cummings decided
to shoot up to Durham (perhaps
more than once) to sped time
at a second home. Other
prominent government people
have resigned for the same
reason so the simple questions
started with the assumption
that Cummings might have to
abode by the same rules as
those people. It turned out that
No10 didn't think he should
abide by the same rules as any
of us.
The morning's sacrificial
turd was transport minister,
Grant Shapps, who spent most
of the morning appealing
with interviewers to ask him
questions about the A66,
which ironically happens to
go through County Durham.
All he wanted to do was spend
his Sunday talking about his
favourite roads and playing
with his Tonka Toy buses and
trains and yet here he was
having to lie on telly.

Sophie Ridge on Sky managed
to say sarcastically but with
a straight face "I'm sure
you're disappointed not to be
talking about the A66" before
launching into an attack around
Shapp's total lack of briefing
on the Cummings and goings.
It quickly became apparent
that either Shapps hadn't been
briefed by No10 at all or else
he'd been briefed to just say
that Cummings had done the
right thing.
Which was odd because by
the time we got the briefing
at 5pm we learned that the
prime minister had concluded
that Cummings had behaved
correctly after many hours of
discussion with him, discussion
which could only have taken
place after Shapps had been
on TV. So, if the PM was
telling the truth then Shapps
must have been toadying by
pure instinct alone (probably
not too difficult after years in
the Tory Party).

Shapps tried to do the same
performance on Marr an
hour later but this time was
confronted by what the actual
government guidance said
about staying at home, which
was basically "stay the fuck
at home". There was also the
uncomfortable moment where
Shapps said that the police
had not spoken to Cummings
or family about him being
there but Marr had a police
statement where the cops
claimed they had. Nowhere
could anyone find a clause in
the guidance saying travel 260
miles and then self-isolate if
you have symptoms.

In the afternoon, it was
announced that Boris Johnson
would head the press briefing
and this was pushed back
from 4 to 5pm. The minister
scheduled to take part, the
walking Tory haircut Robert
Jenrick, must have been so
relieved, if he hadn't already
rung in sick.

Johnson emerged and walked
to the lectern, a man hell bent
on saying fuck all that would
answer any of the questions
that had built up during the day.
Cummings had done the right
thing by traveling around the
country potentially spreading
the virus. Meanwhile the
British public must have
misunderstood the rules totally
by staying home, protecting
the NHS and saving lives.
Where on earth could we have
got that from? The PM didn't
explicitly say that he thinks
we're all fucking idiots but
only because that was obvious.
The journalists didn't get any
answers. Shortly after the
briefing the person in charge
of the civil service twitter
account wrote "arrogant and
offensive. Can you imagine
having to work with these
truth twisters?" And that little
bit of honesty from the heart
of government summed up
a rather surreal day in which
Grant Shapps just wanted to
talk about transport in general
and instead the whole political
scene discussed the transport
of one man and his family.

https://classwar.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CW-Daily-34-200525.pdf

------------------------------