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How to Win the Hotel Strike

by Workers Action
This struggle cannot be won if scabs are allowed to cross the picket line
every day of the week. Hotel owners will have little interest in making
concessions as long as their profits keep pouring in.
The Hotels have flown in hundred of scabs to be "replacement" workers.
Soldidarity is needed by all who support workers and workers rights.
==================================================================
How to Win!
This struggle cannot be won if scabs are allowed to cross the picket line
every day of the week. Hotel owners will have little interest in making
concessions as long as their profits keep pouring in.

These jobs are Local 2 jobs!
When people work, we work not only for ourselves,
but for our children, for our spouses, and for our partners.
We work in order thatwe and our loved ones can survive.
We work so that our children have the basic,
inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is for this reason that the right to work for reasonable compensation
is a basic human right!
No one has the right to scab!
Scabs are not only traitors to themselves but traitors to humanity.
It is our duty to exercise our constitutional right of assembly
and put a stop to their treachery!
We believe that a call should be put out to every labor union in the city
to help mobilize thousands of supporters
so that these picket lines are large enough to
stop the scabs from crossing them.
In this way the labor movement can assure
that the hotels are shutdown...
this is the only way to force the owners to concede
to the just demands of Local 2 and its membership.
This step will send a signal to people throughout the city
that a real fight is being waged and inspire them to join in.
Mass picket lines could initially be organized on weekends and then,
using that momentum, extended into the week days.
An educational committee should be organized
and mandated to explain to all scabs
that they are not only stealing our jobs,
but the food off our table and the clothes off our back.
They are committing crimes against humanity.
The outcome of this struggle will impact all working people.

With solidarity we can win!
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL!
Workers Action
http://www.workersaction.org
email: sf_adam [at] rocketmail.com
Workers Action is a socialist organization. We are active in
building the Million Worker March and in supporting of all
independent working class actions. Labor donated.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Money is louder than words
I wonder how much money Workers Action has given to those workers locked out?
by Lau
give these jobs to the city's working poor and forget the union
we should all free of repressive union restrictions
management agrees. they'd love to have a few more scabs I'm sure.
by is to occupy the hotels
so they can't bring scabs in, not walk out of them during a shitty economy. let alone "briefly." duh.

hard to say if it's more condemning if the union saw this coming, or if it didn't.
by Mother Jones
A general strike is needed now. If the Central Labor Council would stop promoting the worthless Democrats and their election-frauding thugs such as the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, which was among many groups that promoted election fraud to put anti-labor, anti-tenant "mayor" Gavin Newsom in office as well as his organized crime thug predecessor, Willie Brown, and instead organized labor for a general strike, this hotel lockout would end in 1 day.

It is obvious that the hotels are receiving deliveries and yet the Central Labor Council does nothing.

If the City of San Francisco really cared about the City's economy and its dependence on tourist dollars, it would take over the hotels by right of eminent domain and run them directly for the benefit of the City. This is long overdue.
by back to bed now
that general strike is coming right up. we'll call walter, and the mayor, tomorrow. ask em what the hell they think they're doing. that'll show em, and they'll order the cops to protect the strikers and all. not a gift will move this christmas.

just keep bitching about the democrats, as if they haven't already lost everything too.

pleasant dreams!!
by it's not about demos fool.
in case you're entirely clueless, try walking the picket sometime. I guess YOU didn't happen to see any of the awesome workers out on the line this week, fighting for their families and their rights. I swear the longer the week went on, the louder they got. What the fuck they're losing next year's health care if they don't re-enroll.

solidarity helps. if management isn't forced to negotiate, believe me, they won't. workers rights always take a back seat to profit. wake up. if you're in a non-union job, too bad, keep kissing the brown ring 'o glory, or get a better job.
by you're paying attention to your own rhetoric,
not to what's really going on.

which is exactly why the leftie paradigm is disintegrating before the very eyes of those who banked hardest on it, those who are most vulnerable within it, like those "awesome" workers out there-- awesome and awestruck. it really is a crying shame, it breaks my heart to watch. labor's been losing in the US since, when, exactly?

the real fool is one who ignores what's happening for the fantasy world of wishing that doing or feeling or being the right thing is enough-- better yet, is all that matters. you can villainize me all you want-- it's already all you have left. too bad for the people who are out there counting on some sort of miracle. my question for you is: why is every strike like this anymore? is that really about me or you or anyone?

this thing reeks of piss-poor planning and execution. now, who's gonna step up and take some credit for that? mmm, a bit harder to personalize. no, instead, people like you spring to the touchy defense of some platitude or another, about how a general strike "is needed" and how the democrats are "worthless" &c &c, and go back to making it about personal naivete or evil intent for not falling into your vision of groupthink-as-solidarity-- go back to making class struggle something personal.

my friend, free clue time: that's exactly why labor is getting its ass kicked out there.
by Community Solidarity
Bay Area Supports Hotel Workers and Demands Immediate End to Lockout

A community solidarity action to support hotel workers' struggle for healthcare and bargaining power (2-year contract) has been called by allies of the locked-out workers for Saturday, 11/20 in San Francisco.

The 14 locked-out hotels picked the wrong city to attack workers. San Francisco will show its solidarity with hotel workers by taking direct action, kicking off a new campaign of solidarity until the workers' demands are met. Healthcare is a human right the community pledges to defend.

Community allies demand from the hotels:

* An immediate end to the lockout
* No increase in worker contributions to the health care plan
* A contract length of two years
* Back pay for all workers since the beginning of the lockout
* An apology to the people of San Francisco

The Million Worker March Committee, SF Labor Council, UNITE-HERE Local 2, and ILWU Local 10 will hold a Rally and Picket on 11/20, starting at 11 a.m. at Union Square and marching to several locked-out hotels and finally to Justin Herman Plaza. To join the action, look for the "Community Solidarity" sign at Justin Herman Plaza... See you in the streets.
by one step ahead
this is the one good chance for the working poor to get a break and get into a decent job that will pay rent AND food for the wife and kids. unions keep more of us "undesireables out than any other function that they serve. unions represent segregation of the next century

go get your job now - in time for x-mas
by tough luck, scab!
have you tried listening to your own rhetoric lately. piss poor indeed.
by poor as piss
weak strike, weak settlement, weaker analysis, and yet weaker left "intervention" in the typical stupid, moronic union-bureaucratic stumbling from one disaster to another.

and in 60 days?

it's really sad. what used to be an incredible intellectual rigor (particularly the marxists), has degenerated to scab-calling anyone questioning this pathetic paradigm.
by yes let's defer to the intellectuals
they have all the answers, all the time, for everybody. although using big words, and having no understanding of workers rights doesn't necessarily make you an intellectual.

by the way, have you ever been on strike?
by yes indeed
let's cover for our failed vision and entirely predictable, defeatable tactics, by heaping scorn on anyone who dares to question them. they must be enemies, for not falling into the line of pathos, if you will.

oh yes, attack intellectuals, or anyone calling for anything like their role in a social process. much easier than teaching workers to think for themselves, for example-- to say nothing of more controllable.

it really doesn't matter what you or i or any other individual has been through. a superficial analysis of the last 60 years of labor relations in the u-ess would suffice. not to suggest something heavy like deep thinking leading to new conclusions. who cares about that kind of thing anyway?

no, that might do something for someone besides me or you.

meanwhile, the question burns: what happens in 60 days? carry on? back to the glorious defeat?
by the usual defeatist rhetoric
You're anti-labor, so of course you're going to spout it. Never mind that you and others like you alienate potential allies. You don't care as long as long as you come off as some kind of pundit. Deep thinking indeed.

We certainly will see what happens in 60 days. The workers will have nothing to thank you for in any event. Thanks for the "insight" and the superior attitude. Helps make lots of progress, to be sure. 2 steps back now, don't forget.
by project your impotence onto others.
sleep, move on reaction, repeat, as labor movement continues to shrink. yup, that must be my fault, for noticing it aloud. what vicious opposition on your path to victory!!

but i'll let ya get back to the workers thanking you for being such a friend. peasants that they are, what need do they have for new-fangled ideas or high-falutin notions like premeditated strategies designed to win. nope, back to sleepwalking...

pleasant dreams...
by it was quite clear
what your opinion of workers was from the outset. enjoy life in your own fantasy world, lackey.
by but maybe it's your real opinion
perhaps. but maybe it's your real opinion of workers that is becoming clear, once all the layers of groupthink and blind deference to the traditions that have kept the workers' movement weak and servile in this country are scraped away-- an odious task indeed, when so many like you blindly defend it whatever its contents or costs, whatever its failures.

it seems that you'll blindly shill for just any old situation they're stuck with, as long as it's got the union label on it. such a friend the workers have in you, indeed. the saddest form of lackeyism is the one that goes around bragging of its own independence... and pointing to the compromises of others as proof.

like, say, your scab-is-evil fetishism. no point in intellectualizing with them either, huh? then you might end up with friends on the inside and recruits. but if the unions really wanted people on the inside (let alone recruits), they would have conducted their strike inside the hotels, instead of safely out on the sidewalks. no, instead you can just throw that ancient jack london chestnut at them. of course, such an attitude did wonderful things for his point of view later in life, huh?

there are none so blind as those who will not see.
by "none so blind"
you call workers peasants, so what does that make you? Either another peasant, a brown nosed lackey or someone who aspires to rule over one or the other. If the shoe fits, act accordingly.

You sure as hell aren't in a union. I guess you're either unemployed, self-employed, or your boss is an angel from heaven. And yet you want to intellectualize taking jobs from honest low income working people and giving them to scabs. What happens when we turn workers against each other? Who profits? Can you can stop intellectualizing about something which is actually happening to real workers and families long enough to think about that?

No you can't. "Unions are bad, it's black and white." Now THAT is the stupid argument of an arrogant pissant.
by but that's not what i said
i didnt say unions were bad, i said their lame practices, and blind boosterism of same, was. referring to workers as peasants was a swipe at your anti-intellectual attitudes vis a vis the working class, as if they weren't capable of it or born to it or something. funny that's the one thing you keep coming back to-- it's the only peg you have to hang your critique of me on.

and it is a critique of me, not of the valid points i raise-- points that should concern anyone who cares about the future of organized labor in america, if it has one. you say i think in black and white, but that's just a projection. in fact, you can't see enemies at your side, nor friends across any given line, in your mind or in the world. this is because you're so used to letting by-now arbitrary distinctions, and catch-all symbolic manipulation, replace anything remotely resembling analytical thought in your head.

the world, grasshopper, is a cascade of nuanced greys. it is your black and white thinking that is killing your ability to constructively intervene in anyone else's movement, whether you're a "part" of it, a "friend" of it, or just talking out your ass.

whatever. i only sincerely regret that ordinary workers trying to survive a system designed to consume them, have to endure fools like you. it's an unfair handicap, since the boss can fire such "help."
by and black and white thinking
"And yet you want to intellectualize taking jobs from honest low income working people and giving them to scabs."

go watch "Matewan" again and get back to us on that.

oh no, it's more fun to enjoy the thrill of moral superiority you can get from posting pictures of some teenage kid who doesn't know any better, helping some sadly-dressed old lady endure your taunts and jeers.

whatta win for the workers, that.
by try trolling on the freeper site
because you're wasting your time here. pseudo-intellectuals like you are a dime a dozen.
by you think you're the only one reading
maybe you are.

but then, maybe you just really don't see a thing in the world, unless your ideology has set it all up for you.
by fer yer info
but you know that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. you want a flame war. why you want a flame war, I couldn't begin to imagine, but I have my suspicions naturally...
by i want change
and i know better than to ask for it from ideologists. confrontation is the coin of the realm here, and so i present and defend ideas that way.

i can only imagine why you have to smear anything that threatens what you already think as "trollbait." but it might not be off the mark to guess it has something to do with "groupthink."
by what "group" you're in
but I do know that in the workplace, unions come in for a reason. And it's usually abuse of worker's rights. That's why my union came into my workplace. Massive firings with no notice. Among other things. Not all workplaces need a union. Once they're in though, there's usually some history behind it.

Before you try to lump all unions in together try talking to a few workers about their experience in them instead of calling them "peasants" like an elitist.
by are rural workers
why are you so touchy about being a peasant? do you think it's dishonorable to work the land? most people don't like the word because it implies a sort of simplicity, a naivete that allows villains (that is, city folk) to take advantage of peasants. the implied critique is true to this day, because nobody bothers to educate people who work, much beyond training them for the job.

you think i don't understand unions. i think you don't understand my critique of what's going on in the hotel strike-and-then-lockout-and-now-mediation, and the deeper implications of that critique in the context of the contemporary class war in america. sorry that took some fancy words to express, really.

i wish more workers knew how to talk like that, because it would indicate their capacity for complex thought, which so many seem to want to prevent-- union bureaucracies very much included, with their reactionary "fighting for our families" rhetoric and extremely weak tactics.

may i suggest you just stop reacting to me for a moment, and think about what i really have said versus the way you've characterized what i've said. think about where the discrepancy might be coming from on your part. i assure you, i can explain my position as much as i care to, but i might not be here to justify myself. so stop getting me to try to, and think, dammit, for just a minute.

what are you really defending, and why? what are the consequences of that defense, for you and those you obviously, and rightly, care very much about?
by just another idiot worker
so of all the things that you have said here: I have yet to hear any real criticisms and ways with which the union could have done things differently.

where's the real critique? is it your love of the word groupthink? or perhaps your idea that we can somehow make the labor movement more personable?

I find it pretty hard to see why you are arguing with the folks here as most of us (I cant really speak for everyone) have alot of criticisms with the union beaurocracy. But really, your just piping to the choir.

action gets the goods. lets see your hoity-toity intellectual thoughts put into action. I'm sure you will find that it is actually alot harder to get to those grey areas that you speak of.
by are you making some kind of point?
what purpose, this anti-intellectualism? whose interests does it serve?

are you proud of ignorance or something, yours or others'? maybe you should try the republicans..... except even they're getting educated these days...

i will counter with the fine example of the american communist movement in the 30s, when workin stiffs weren't afraid to study and learn, apply theory and then change their minds based on results. it was an empirical approach. if anything, they didn't do enough of it, because sometimes their intellectual activity was undermined by ideological imperatives.

before you go red-bashing, let me hasten to add that they were the real architects of the union movement as it currently exists, the legacy of which people like those union-bureaucratic worms (you're so hot to defend) are still living off of as it falls into the sand like the archaeological remains of a half-forgotten empire. foraging for scraps of "respect" and cents-a-year wage schedules like that's freedom for the workers, as if forestalling insurance-premuim hikes for 4300 hotel employees is securing healthcare rights for the working class in this country.

those "hoity-toity" red intellectuals won the eight hour day, social security, unemployment insurance (fully paid for by the employer), paid vacations, and oh yeah, the legally-secured (and later undermined) right to organize a union without retaliation.

oh sure, there were some strikes, even some general ones. but i assert they did it by being able to spell the bureaucracy they fought against or imposed, depending on the situation. they did it by understanding an awful lot of things. and they did it by never, ever resting or relying on the moral superiority of their feelings to count for jack shit in a real fight with bosses.

hey, i thought you were in a union-- so maybe i am out there struggling with the average worker about what the hell they're thinking. so far, you're not doing your cause much good, on the brain front.
by unions SUCK!!!!!!!!
JUST EXTORTION OF WORKING PEOPLE

there is no defense for their existance
by that's articulate
um, that's sarcasm. guess i oughta say that around here.
by that's articulate
um, that's sarcasm. guess i oughta say that around here.
by just another idiot worker
"what purpose, this anti-intellectualism? whose interests does it serve? "

What purpose does intellectualism serve? If it is not applied to solutions in the real world? In fact, I should point out, what purpose does psuedo-intellectual drivel serve? In your case, not much.

"are you proud of ignorance or something, yours or others'?"

to call someone ignorant when you haven't been able to prove yourself non-ignorant makes you come off as a pompous intellectualite removed from any real class struggle.

" before you go red-bashing, let me hasten to add that they were the real architects of the union movement"

no, you have gotten me wrong. I am quite aware that the 8 hour day was won by folks who were both commies AND anarchist. Are you afraid or even unwilling to admit that? or is it your own ideology that gets in the way of realizing this? I'm really not here to argue the case of anarchism or against communism. What is your purpose to keep bringing up communism?

What I see as the real reason these folks won these class struggles was that they split (note: I would have to disagree with you here that they "taught the unions") from the so-called political unions --yes, the AFL, the CIO, etc-- and created their own union (the IWW) that didnt give bribes to elected officials. They brought class struggle back to the workers. And in fact they took their ideas and applied them to real working class situations.

Now, you wonder what my problem with intellectualism is? When it comes to labor theory, it is the fact that current intellectualism is so far removed current class struggle and the changing landscape of labor. You have proven this to me by continually refering to organizing strategies based in the 30's. And, I give you the opportunity here to show me otherwise.You have yet to do so.

"hey, i thought you were in a union-- so maybe i am out there struggling with the average worker about what the hell they're thinking. so far, you're not doing your cause much good, on the brain front."

No, in fact, I am not in a union. Nor do I support the current union leadership. I would have to remark that, aside from some name-calling and quoting history books, you have yet to show your worth as criticism. Your cause, so far is non-existant. Why don't you take your self-satisfying historical rhetoric and organize? Perhaps then we will see what your worth is.

PS. you are not debating with one person. I have kept my name the same throughout this thread.
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