What's interesting is at 2:32, you learn that Cleo and Margarito were paid to hold signs and at 2:41 some ass starts talking about how they are out there, not getting paid to protest:

...we're not union organizers

Here's a funny thing about that, I've NEVER been paid to hold a sign at a protest. Not by a union, not by a protest group, not by anyone, ever. Hell, I've even picketed as strike support, again, without pay. I know, reality won't change his opinion. It's not like some folks haven't been paid in the past for small scale protests, they have, but when those protests happened, they weren't inspired by a Faux News Network, bent on inspiring fear, hate and Oh, No, SOCIALISM.

Good thing I have a day off today so that I can catch up on all this ridiculousness. Honestly, it does a heart good to know that crazies are really out there. And here I thought they'd figured out they lost. But then again, I doubt they were in the Silver Section for the Inaugural, the way I was. I suppose this just gives me a bit more perspective, huh?

There's a diary up on Dailykos about this event. Really good stuff in there.


And on a different note, JR Monsterfodder from The Writing at the Wal has another post up on Daiykos as well about UFCW organizing Wal-Mart. Highly recommend the read.

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The other week I joined a union that I deeply believe in, Workers United. There’s been a lot of talk about the break-up of UNITE HERE but as a former member of HERE Local 75 I have a lot to add. I’ve been employed at Fort Erie Racetrack and Slots since July, 17 1999 and I joined the union then. But it wasn’t until HERE’s 2004 merger with UNITE that I got any servicing at all from the union. I talked about this some in this YouTube movie:




It took a while to get rid of the bad taste Local 75 left in my mouth but now that we’ve left UNITE HERE and formed Workers United I really think we can finally get the good contract standards we’ve been lagging on for so long in the hospitality industry.

I want to be forward thinking but there’s been so much misinformation being spread by the former HERE leadership (not members like me) that I want to go on record about one of the big problems that UNITE HERE had that pushed the folks in my local in our new direction.

At the 2004 convention where UNITE and HERE merged, fmr. HERE president John Wilhelm (now UNITE HERE Hospitality Division President) proclaimed that "the test of the success or failure of this merger should be whether UNITE HERE organizes substantially more workers in the years to come than our two unions have been organizing separately before the merger". Since that factually has not happened, Wilhelm is now arguing in memos that the merger is successful but that its success should be evaluated on “whether we are achieving good contracts.” He is claiming that the union has won the best contract standards for hotel workers across North America.

But the merger failed to even do that. In Canada, thousands of UNITE HERE members work under lower contract standards than their peers at hotels organized by other unions. UNITE HERE’s weaker contracts have considerable gaps in pay, benefits, and worker protections. Union contracts are searchable online at the Labour Relations website which makes this simple to find for anyone who bothers to check.

In Vancouver, where the leadership of UNITE HERE Local 40 has been under supervision by the International Union since 2005 for financial mismanagement, the union represents some 10,000 workers in the hotel and hospitality industries in British Columbia. However, Local 40’s master agreement with the Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers Association, representing four premier Vancouver properties, is not as good as the Canadian Auto Workers’ contract at a similar comparable hotel, the Fairmont Vancouver.

• Guest room attendants earn $1.68 to $2.33 more per hour under the CAW contract than under the Local 40 agreement, or $3,494 to $4,846 more per year. (footnote 1)Banquet servers at the Fairmont earn $16.27 per hour, compared to $11.52 at the Four Seasons (low) and $12.44 at the Westin (high) under the Local 40 agreement. That’s $7,966 to $9,880 more per year under the CAW contract.
• 
  The probationary period is more than twice as long for Local 40 members (90 days) as for CAW members (40 days), and it takes twice as long for new hires to earn the full rate of pay (12 months at Local 40 versus 6 months at CAW).
• 
  CAW members won extensive health and safety language, including the right for the union to accompany outside inspectors, the establishment of a Health & Safety Committee that meets monthly, annual company-paid first aid training, and language protecting members’ refusal to work in unsafe conditions (footnote 2). But Local 40’s master agreement doesn’t say anything about health and safety.

In Victoria, there is also a big difference between standards under the CAW and Local 40 agreements with major hotels.

• At the Fairmont Empress, the employer pays 100% of the healthcare premiums for CAW members, while at the Coast Harbourside Local 40 members must make contributions to cover their fringe benefits.
• 
  Wages for housekeepers under the CAW agreement are $2.29 per hour higher than under Local 40’s agreement, amounting to $4,763 more per year.
• 
  Cooks’ helpers earn $2.59 more per hour under the CAW agreement at the Empress, or $5,387 more per year than under the Local 40 contract at the Harbourside Hotel.

And in Toronto, where UNITE HERE Local 75 has been dealing with frequent decertification attempts led by THEIR OWN MEMBERS in several hotels, six other unions have organized workers at 13 hotels in the GTA/Hamilton area. And standards achieved in those contracts are higher than those of Local 75 in many cases. For example:

• 
  Under the UFCW contract at the Four Seasons, , members receive three weeks of vacation at three years’ seniority, while it takes five years for members to earn as much under the UNITE HERE Local 75 contract at the Fairmont Royal York.
• 
  Maintenance staff are paid $1.44 to $2.78 more per hour under the UFCW contract at the Four Seasons than workers in the same classification at the Royal York under the contract with Local 75.
• 
  Servers at the Great Blue Heron Casino, represented by the CAW, earn $12.49 per hour compared to $9.97 per hour at the Royal York, or $5,241 more per year.
  

In a memo last month Wilhelm said, “the Union cannot expect to grow by making itself less relevant and beneficial to its members. Such a course would ultimately destroy the Union.” That's totally true. Which is why it's so sad that here in Canada, where many UNITE HERE hotel contracts fail to set top standards, the union is weakened. Multiple other unions have won strong, decisive victories in UNITE HERE’s jurisdictions while UNITE HERE’s own members have run decertification elections! It is true that without improvements in wages, benefits and working conditions, workers will not have the power necessary to effectively organize, but in his own house and under his own watch, some of Wilhelm’s key locals have failed to meet his most basic test. Honestly, we deserve better. That’s why we formed Workers United. If you care about standards in Canada you'll support us.
________________________________________
Footnote 1
All wage levels are from date of ratification and do not include contractually guaranteed raises. Members of the Vancouver Hotel Employers’ Association have the same master agreement but pay different wage rates, so all rates listed are the low and high end of the range. Yearly calculations are based on 2,080 paid hours of work.


Footnote 2
The CAW contract with the Fairmont Vancouver runs from 8/1/08 to 7/31/11. The UNITE HERE Local 40 contract with the Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers’ Association, representing The Four Seasons, Hyatt Regency, the Renaissance Harbourside, and the Westin Bayshore covers the period 7/1/07 to 6/30/10.

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I headed over to MSNBC for the latest news on the kidnapping of Captain David Phillips, but couldn't help reading up on Elkhart, Indiana, instead.

When discussion turns to the decline of the American manufacturing, labor unions inevitably come in for a full share of criticism.

That sentiment surfaced on Day 1 of the The Elkhart Project, with several readers offering the opinion that unions must be at least partly to blame for the economic mayhem being visited on the city and surrounding communities.

But in the case of Elkhart County, organized labor bears no responsibility for the precipitous decline of the RV industry for a simple reason: All the recreational vehicle manufacturers in the area run non-union shops.

In fact, there are very few union manufacturing jobs in the city at all.

There are manufacturing jobs in Elkhart. There's a musical instrument manufacturer and on April 1, 2006, 230 workers walked out on strike there:

Union officials said the strikers walked out when contract talks broke down over wages and benefits, with the company demanding 40 percent pay cuts and substantial reductions in vacation, retirement and health insurance.

Here's the thing, you have to vote to strike. In 2006, just a few months before I launched this blog, these workers just wanted the same contract. They wanted to work. The company wanted to crush the union. What better way to do it than to refuse to negotiate and force a strike vote? I suppose you could do what Kongsberg Automotive did, lock out the workers, illegally, but hey, whatever. More from Newsvine:

“We would have extended the current contract, we asked for nothing,” said Kish, who believes the company wanted to force a strike to destroy the union. “I call it corporate terrorism.”

Steinway Musical Instruments, the New York Stock Exchange-listed company that owns Conn-Selmer, declined to comment. The company has been trying since 2007 to get the union decertified, but the results of a disputed vote on the issue won’t be decided until President Obama fills vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board.

But, you can hear from the workers themselves:



I look at it this way, when you're loyal to your employer in good times and bad, then you deserve the same from them. Conn-Selmer clearly doesn't feel the same way. It doesn't seem much different from what happened to the Diamond Walnut workers, from American Rights at Work:

When the company started to have financial trouble in the 1980s and appealed to the workers for help, a sense of loyalty compelled them to assist. The workers and their union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, approved of cuts of over 30 percent to their wages and benefits in order to keep the company afloat.

And then what happened? The company rebounded. They got back on their feet and then went back to the workers and after 4 years offered a 10 cent per hour increase. Sweet, huh? So, then what?

In September 1991, with no other recourse, the workers voted to strike. Without effective labor law to help them force Diamond to negotiate fairly, the striking workers and their union worked to draw public attention to their plight, beginning with a call for an international boycott of Diamond Walnut products.

I had boycott Diamond walnuts for a very long time. As a baker, it was a very difficult decision to make. But, I did it, until the scabs decided that they needed a union.

A break in the impasse began when Diamond's replacement workers realized that a union would help them improve their working conditions. In 2004, Diamond workers - including the strikers and their replacements - voted to retain union representation. Shortly afterwards, the company finally sought a resolution and negotiated a fair contact with the union. In March 2005, 750 workers ratified a new five-year contract that secured wage increases, stabilized healthcare costs, and offered a 401(k) plan, training programs, and English classes. Additionally, the strikers retained benefits and seniority when they returned to the plant, all without causing the replacement workers to lose their jobs.

Justice prevailed for the replacement workers seeking union representation. The same cannot be said for the striking workers who made significant sacrifices for their employer and for the struggle. Fewer than 30 of the original 600 striking workers returned to the plant to enjoy the benefits of the new contract. After 14 years of struggle, most of the original Diamond workers were forced to find other employment, or were simply too old to go back to work.

If you read comments on the Newsvine thread, you get to see how some (probably paid by anti-union groups or simply from the Chamber of Commerce) folks view the concept of unity, negotiating and collective bargaining. They claim things that just aren't true from unions time has come and gone to there's no need for them in a global economy.

There is no better time for unity than right now. Unions rose from the roots. When the owners of industry treated work as if it were useless and a commodity to be traded and when government came in and assisted owners by shooting workers, jailing them and harassing them, it was clear what we needed. A Voice. And that's what your union is for you. All you have to do is look to the Charleston 5, the American Axle Strike or the sit in at Republic Windows.



Greed is not an American value. And neither is anti-unionism, no matter how loud the anti-union voices are, it's not an American Value. This is the time for unions. Together we Bargain, Divided, We STARVE. Unions make us strong.

You can follow the Elkhart Project on Twitter (I am).

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by shirah crossposted with permission from unbossed

The one bright spot within the economic gloom that surrounds so many of us was the Republic Window and Door worker sit in. By sitting in they stood up for their rights. By sitting in they got our attention and sent a lesson of what is possible by engaging in concerted acts of mutual aid and support.

They showed a labor movement that has some real movement.


The story may have slipped from our attention, but here is a video that captures the events and the emotion involved.



That was the first step - getting the pay and money owed the workers under law.

But that was just the first step. These people need jobs, and they are working hard to create those jobs - doing what they used to do for Republic.

Here is the most recent news on the continuing struggle.

UE Local 1110 announced today that the leading company in the green window business -- Serious Materials, based in Sunnyvale, California -- is in the final stages of working out an agreement to purchase the assets of Republic Windows and Doors. Members of UE Local 1110 staged a sit-in last month to win severance, health benefits and earned vacation pay, after the plant's previous owner shut down with only three days' notice to workers.

Though some details still need to be finalized, the union is told that the parties are very close to inking a deal. "We are all hopeful about the possibility of Serious reopening our plant. This would be a very happy ending to our struggle," said former Republic worker and Local 1110 Vice President Melvin Maclin.

Serious Materials is a leading manufacturer of energy saving green building products. Their stated mission is to reduce greenhouse gases by one billion tons annually. "These are the green-collar jobs we need for the future of our community," said Armando Robles, former Republic maintenance worker and president of Local 1110. Serious Materials and the union believe there is market in the Midwest for the energy efficient, super-insulating windows and commercial glass that Serious makes.

Serious has said that it hopes, after a ramp-up period, to eventually hire all of the former Republic workforce. For that to happen, however, the bankruptcy court must act quickly. The local fears that if the court delays, the business will evaporate and it will be difficult to re-hire anyone. "We hope that the creditors, trustee and judge will allow Serious to purchase the assets soon, so I and my co-workers can start making windows again," said Robles.

That was January 14. They continue to need support. You can show solidarity by keeping this story alive and even by donating to the cause through the Windows of Opportunity fund.

And many showed their support as the workers toured the country.

Here is the story from the Detroit stop.

And as for you, isn't it time to stand up?

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I’m a huge fan of the work that unionized bakers do. They are creative with the most delicious things imaginable, cakes. So, when I found this site, I had to wonder to myself, how many of these concoctions are union made and how many are just picked up at Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart. No matter who’s made them, let me say right now that I hope this one is union made.





When I saw it, I nearly coughed up a lung. For more of these bizarre cakes and also cakes with misspellings and goddess knows what else, head over to cake wrecks, you’ll be glad you did.

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I worked my way through college selling makeup at a fancy-schmancy department store. So whenever I start in about the terrible working conditions, hours, wages, and unfair treatment--and how much we needed a union-- the eye-rolling usually starts after a few seconds.

Yeah, yeah, I know--it wasn't backbreaking manual labor, and my life and limbs weren't (usually) in danger. But we have to get away from the kind of thinking that says only those who do the most difficult and dangerous work need a union, and that everyone else should just quit whining. Especially when retail workers are a huge part of the service sector, the fastest growing sector in the American economy. And especially when a large percentage of those retail workers are female, and face special hardships at work due to extra obligations to children and family.

When I worked at the department store, which I shall not name, I was just a college kid. So I suffered through because I figured it was just a temporary miserableness. But many of my fellow workers were lifers, talented salespeople or makeup artists, and often the sole or primary breadwinner for their families. And what they needed, though they would never have even thought of it, was a voice in the workplace, speaking out for them. A union voice, to help them improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions.

I saw pregnant women not allowed to sit on stools or chairs, forced on busy days to stand for five or six hours at a time before being allowed to take a break. I saw women forced to carry heavy boxes and equipment every morning, and I also saw plenty of older women with back problems and knee problems doing the same. I saw a co-worker cut her hand open on a piece of jagged glass in our display case, the same piece of glass that we'd complained about endlessly and gotten no response on until the injury. Another co-worker accidentally dropped a heavy table on my leg, and the first thing I was asked to do when the managers all came running was to sign a waiver that the company was not responsible. I did so, not knowing any better, because my leg hurt and I wanted to go to the doctor as soon as possible to check it out--and they wouldn't let me go until I'd signed. (I still have a scar from that injury.) When a serial rapist was on the loose in my town, attacking women in mall parking lots, management still refused to let us women park close to the building, forcing us instead to walk alone in the dark as late as midnight across a deserted parking lot to get to our cars.

And there were other hurts, too--not physical but mental. We were constantly threatened with firing for everything: not opening credit cards, not forcing customers to buy "add-ons" that the company stuck on our counters, not sucking up to the right manager or the right boss. In fact, you could be fired because another co-worker made up something about you--and believe me, in an all female environment, there's a lot of that going on. Management liked to promote conflict between the female workers, because they believed it made us more productive sales people. If we didn't like each other, we wouldn't "stand around chatting," in the words of one of my bosses. As if women weren't intersted in making money, or doing a good job--nope, we were just a bunch of chatterboxes, us crazy females.

No matter how long you were there or how hard you worked, you might never get a promotion, based solely on who liked you and who didn't. You never got the hours you wanted, there was no such thing as a set schedule, and quarterly raises were about 5 cents an hour. (They could, of course, be more, depending on your performance review, but somehow no one ever had a good performance review.) If you got scheduled for rotten hours, you might not make any money at all besides your (very low) base pay.

We had to work on every major holiday or shopping day, were not allowed to take a whole weekend off unless we used vacation hours, and even then it was only allowed during "non-blackout days," as if our lives were some sort of frequent flyer exemption. I missed weddings, funerals, family gatherings, and most of all, holiday time with my family. And at least I didn't have children, unlike many of my co-workers, who missed an awful lot of precious weekend and holiday time with their kids. One older women who retired when I was there told me, "This will be the first day-after-Thanksgiving I've gotten to sleep in and spend with my family for thirty five years. "

All this was, like I said, bearable because I knew it would eventually end. And I thought there was no remedy. This is how it was. Life was unfair, bosses were unfair, and most people couldn't afford health care. (You sure couldn't afford it at my workplace...I didn't know anyone who had health care through our company.) But once I started working at the United Food and Commerical Workers, I had a very different perspective. Suddenly I was outraged. I wanted to go back in time, to tell my co-workers that we did have a choice--we didn't have to be resigned to unfair treatment and crappy working conditions, to being bullied and recieving very little compensation.

I can't go back in time. But I am thrilled to be organizing retail workers, women and men, who deserve better at work. This is something that we're doing a lot more of these days at the UFCW, and it's such important just to LET retail workers know that there is a remedy for what they suffer at work. Better wages, working conditions, and equal pay for equal work were issues championed in the early days of the UFCW movement and are still extremely important to improving the lives of workers today.

UFCW has members at stores like Macy’s, Bloomingdale's, Saks 5th Avenue, and other retail giants--members who are realizing the strength they have when they stick together and demand fair treatment. One of our local unions, RWDSU/UFCW Local 1102 recently organized 1,000 new H&M workers at nine Manhattan stores. Through UFCW representation, the new members will have an opportunity to negotiate innovative employment standards, in addition to wage and benefit improvements, including a partnership for engaging in socially and environmentally responsible programs. And we're only expanding organizing retail workers from here.

After all, every worker deserves a safe and secure job--a job that pays the bills and allows them to raise a family. It's only fair.

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Crossposted on Dailykos

Race and unions have been intertwined since the beginning of the labor movement.

Over the years, owners and bosses have used race and immigration to divide workers and keep them down. And this practice is a live and well today. Which is why when it happens, unionists combat it everywhere it happens, even on the docks in Charleston, South Carolina.

So, for this installment of my labor history series, we're going to talk about the Charleston 5.



So, let's set the scene. It's late Spring, early Summer 2000 and the Nation is reporting...

This past June 9 the flag of the Confederacy hung lifeless in the afternoon heat in front of the state Capitol in Columbia. A year ago it was demoted from its place atop the Statehouse dome, and on this day the air around it vibrated with the shouts of people demonstrating in support of a labor union, International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422, that had been instrumental in organizing the protests that brought the flag down. At the height of the antiflag campaign last year, 46,000 people had marched on Columbia. This was a smaller crowd, about 5,000, but an old-timer told me he had never in seventy-five years seen so many people turn out for a union in South Carolina. They came because the state is gunning for this union of black dockworkers from Charleston who weren't polite about the flag and weren't docile when a shipping company whose vessels they'd worked for twenty-three years decided to use scab labor.

>snip<

Ken Riley, the president of Local 1422, remembers driving along East Bay Street toward the union hall on the afternoon of January 19 and being awed by the gathering army. Outside the Ports Authority's office next to 1422's hall, riot police were practicing maneuvers, lunging in formation with shields raised, batons up. "My Lord," Riley thought, "what are they preparing for?" After conferring with the presidents of Locals 1771 and 1422-A (port mechanics), he outlined the unions' strategy to workers assembled in the hall: They would do nothing. But because the grand strategy was to drive up the costs of working nonunion, they wouldn't go home either. They'd keep the police out there all night, costing the city, the state, the port and Nordana so much money that those forces would be hard-pressed to claim victory.

Throughout the evening members of all three unions--the blacks who load the ships and have since slave times, the whites who do the paperwork and have since slave times, and the blacks and whites who work as mechanics--passed through 1422's doors. At about 11:30 pm, guys coming into the hall were saying police at roadblocks had harassed them. A discussion followed. The show of force was meant to provoke but also to intimidate; the workers didn't want to fall into the trap, but they didn't want to be bullied either. These days, some union supporters say this is a case about democracy, but the talk that night was about respect, about not being ground down. "I Am a Man" read the famous sign carried by striking garbage workers in Memphis, 1968, and it was that statement the dockers wanted to make by going out to face the police line in Charleston. Riley watched as they funneled out of the hall. He says there were 130 to 140 workers; rank-and-file participants say there were no more than 200; the media's count has swung wildly, from 600 to 400 to 300.

The shipping company in question was Nordana, a Danish company. Nordana made a "business decision" to subcontract the dock work to a company that would use scab labor.

On January 20, 2000?, as one of Nordana's ships was docking, 600 riot-clad local and state police officers were on hand. When about 130 workers began marching toward the dock to exercise their right to picket, police initiated a clash by pushing the picketers back and shouting racist slurs, Kenneth Riley says. When that happened, he and other officers of Local 1422 "created a buffer between the police and the pickets," according to the Campaign for Workers' Rights in South Carolina. At that point, the Campaign reported, one police officer "ran out of formation and clubbed Kenneth Riley in the head. A fight ensued." The police attacked the workers with rubber bullets, tear gas, smoke grenades, and nightsticks.

After Police attacked the workers, 12 men were arrested and 5 were charged with felony counts of conspiracy to riot. These charges meant that

All five workers faced felony charges for rioting, which if convicted carried a maximum of five years in prison, and individual fines of between $1,000 and $5,000.

These were 5 rank and file members of ILA's Local 1422. But this was largely the problem, not the peaceful protests on the docks against Nordana, but it was the union's local, #1422. You see, local 1422 is a progressive and predominantly African-American union in deeply red and extremely anti-union South Carolina.

You see, this local chose to support progressive candidates and causes and to also provide additional assistance to these candidates and causes through use of their facilities and mobilization of their membership.

Well, all this activism (read that as being "uppity blacks/workers/etc") didn't sit well with the predominantly Republican establishment, especially after the ILA (local 1422) organized rallies to have the Confederate Flag removed from the state capitol. They need to do something, bring them back in line. This was their shining moment of opportunity and the Attorney General wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

Originally, State Attorney General Charlie Condon sought the indictments of nine union men for rioting. But a trial judge who watched the videotape of the conflict dropped the charges for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, Condon, a right-wing Republican, successfully obtained indictments for five men. At that time Condon said his plan for the workers was “jail, jail, and more jail.” Condon also refused to negotiate plea bargains with the union.

So, Condon had his moment, he had his show of force:

The assault was aimed not only at labor rights but at civil rights too. ILA members in Charleston are overwhelmingly black, and Local 1422 played a key role in a 40,000-strong march on the statehouse in Charleston—held just three days before the police riot—to demand that the Confederate flag be taken down. Condon's[Attorney General at the time] vengeful actions suggest that he was hoping to ride a racist backlash into the governor's mansion.

Condon just equated unions to the worst possible topic of our times; yep, it’s true, he did it:

The demagogic South Carolina District Attorney Charlie Condon, with aspirations for governor, had been threatening “jail, jail and more jail” for the longshoremen. He overplayed his hand and was removed from the case after comparing the union picketers to the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center.

But jailing, referring to union activists as terrorists or even fining these workers wasn't enough, Condon wanted to make sure that these workers suffered.

For nearly 20 months, the Charleston Five—Kenneth Jefferson, Elijah Ford, Jr., Peter Washington, Jr., Ricky Simmons, and Jason Edgerton—remained under house arrest. They were forbidden to leave their homes between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. except to go to work or attend union meetings.

Another 27 workers faced a $1.5 million lawsuit filed by WSI, the company that ran the scab operation for Nordana. WSI sued to recover "lost profits" that it claimed the ILA picketers had caused.

The goal here is clear, destroy the union; bankrupt the locals and bring the earning power of these men - who clearly didn't know their place - back in line with the rest of the state, a strongly anti-union rate of pay, about half of their salary. But the locals had a weapon to use in this epic battle, they had solidarity.

Unions from around the country sent help to the ILA locals including unionists to picket and money for the legal defense fund. In Sweden, the president of the dock workers called for a day of International solidarity and in Spain, dock workers REFUSED to unload ANY Nordana unless they used skilled labor. But even with this, the locals weren’t done, with a contract in hand with Nordana, they turned to the WSI scab employees and unionized them. This is pretty much equivalent to kicking ass and taking names in my book. You see, this is what solidarity means. More than ever,

...in today's climate of racism and repression, the Charleston Five victory is nothing short of remarkable. If it inspires other workers to organize—especially in the South—that will be cause for celebration too. Most important, it shows that joining together to stand up for our beliefs is the best way to defend our rights to speak, assemble, and express dissent. Today, these rights are seriously threatened. The only way to keep them is to use them.

It's still up to us. Together we have power and we can bring even the most anti-union state to its knees, remove a racist flag from a State Capitol and celebrate working men and women everywhere. We can only do it if we stick together.

There is a plethora of information on the web about the Charleston 5, including a few ominous pictures of the Police the night of the attack.

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