"A number of Solidarity Federation locals have been mobilising to support our comrades in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in their struggle to defend their members in the US who are facing victimisation and sackings due to their union organising activities.
The list of workers sacked so far for their union activities is:-
- Joseph Agins, sacked December 12th 2005
- Charles Fostrom sacked July 11th 2006
- Evan Winterschiedt sacked July 18th 2006
- Daniel Gross sacked August 5th 2006
- Isis Saenz fired November 1st 2006
All sackings so far have taken place in New York.
So far SolFed members have been involved in a number of pickets of Starbucks stores and have enjoyed some success in sending potential coffee-drinkers elsewhere! It seems that the principle of never crossing a picket line is not quite dead despite all the years of defeat and ruling class propaganda. The struggle of the IWW's Starbucks Union has inspired action in some fifty cities around the world, including in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and of course the US and UK. We hope that SolFed members and others can assist our IWW comrades in winning some breathing space for those trying to take on the harassment and intimidation of this particularly anti-worker multinational. It doesn't take much to hand out some leaflets outside the store and the case is a pretty simple one to argue! See www.starbucksunion.org for further details."