Organizing – Ottawa-Outaouais IWW-SITT

Bernadette Workers Union:

Organizing On-the-Job

Organizing to Save the Job

by x341916

First published in the Industrial Worker. Spanish translation of this article is available on the IWW’s Spanish language publication, Solidaridad.

OTTAWA, CA–I’m the lead external organizer for the Bernadette Workers Union (BWU), a workplace-based, IWW-affiliated “dual union” representing all non-management workers at Garderie Bernadette Child Care center (GBCCC) based on the campus of the University of Ottawa in the province of Ontario. The BWU emerged from a hot shop scenario in early 2021 (the wrongful termination of a co-worker) that pivoted to strategic organizing very quickly. As a dual union, the BWU is legally established as an independent trade union in the province of Ontario, with its own bylaws and governing documents, officers, meetings, elections, etc., which is affiliated to the IWW through a section of its bylaws as a job shop of the local general membership branch. All of the members of the BWU pay dues to the IWW individually, which is kept by the IWW body to which they are affiliated. Though a trade union within the meaning of the Labour Relations Act and related jurisprudence, the BWU does not itself collect or retain dues.

The BWU has succeeded spectacularly under difficult circumstances to build their power on the job as a union, persisting through the resignations of two executive directors as well as the mass resignation of the past GBCCC Board of Directors in December 2021, the latter following on their establishment of trade union status and a very successful union election. I recently sat down with some of the BWU members, along with Fellow Worker Alex, an organizer with the Ottawa-Outaouais GMB who is supporting the campaign, to discuss where they’ve been and where they are going.

By way of background, GBCCC provides up to 49 child care spaces to families with programs from infants through to pre-schoolers. There are 16 permanent and temporary staff (15 of which are BWU members, plus one interim executive director who is seconded from the union), and five regular on-call supply workers. As with elsewhere, the early childhood educator (ECE) workforce at GBCCC is predominantly women of color.

Currently, GBCCC receives in-kind funding in the form of free rent from the University, in return for prioritizing up to 80 percent of child care spaces for members of the university community. For about two years now, with both past and present boards of the center, the university has quietly maintained that it will not continue this arrangement once the existing building in which GBCCC is housed is demolished to make way for new student housing.

The BWU, IWW, and the new pro-union board, however, are not going to go quietly and are pushing the university to recommit to GBCCC as a vital part of the university campus, along with a coalition that has been built with all of the other on-campus workplace unions, student associations, as well as community child care advocates (including the organization that is hosting our e-petition). The BWU and its partnered unions and other organizations are running a public campaign to save the child care center and are looking to meet with the university administration to negotiate a solution that will secure a future for these workers and on-campus families seeking child care.

Fellow Worker VJ, a member of the initial organizing and later executive committee of the BWU, tells a story that will be familiar to many workers. “The number one reason why we started the union is that we were not appreciated as workers. We were always putting in extra unpaid hours. The old manager would play favorites, almost like a high school kind of thing, except that we were all adults. There was a fair bit of nepotism. Every day was a struggle and we were not happy with the management.”

Fellow Worker KF, a member who joined the union mid-2021 after the union had started organizing, adds, “One of our colleagues was wrongfully terminated. They spent all kinds of money on lawyers to settle out and to fight the union. Money was also not properly managed. We fought like hell for two years against the (old) board.”

One of the unique characteristics of this group of workers (including teachers and a cook) is the relatively longer-term job tenure at Bernadette. As noted by Fellow Worker VJ, “The average length of time that ECEs (early childhood educators) stay at work is about three years. Some of us have been here for 8, 10, 12, 18 years.” Fellow Worker KF further notes that “we are a diverse group of people … (w)e had a child who came from a family of new Canadians who did not speak English or French, and we had an ECE who was able to speak their language.”

The main vehicle by which the workers organized was through creating and building their workplace committee, and implementing their collective decisions in the workplace. The committee provided voice and vote to all BWU members in good standing, whose bylaws established them as a job shop of the local IWW GMB and to whom they remitted dues from the earliest days of their organizing. Members were signed up to the union one-by-one by the job delegate and invited to attend the next union meeting.

As put by Fellow Worker VJ: “We are a small and tight group of people, and once we started talking together one on one, we learned that all of us were feeling the same. Many wanted to quit. After we joined the IWW, and after a few of us did the Organizer Training 101, we rapidly built our committee. We identified what kinds of things we have in common and built unity with all the workers around those things.”

One early tactic that built power on the job was as follows. A staff representative position for the board that previously had been filled as decided by the then executive director was voted on in an all-non-management staff meeting organized by the BWU, at which the BWU chair was nominated and acclaimed as the staff rep. The workers called their own “captive meeting” with the executive director in order to inform them that this was their selected representative, per GBCCC’s own bylaws, and they subsequently attended the meetings as the staff representative to the board meetings. In this role, the staff representative and BWU secretary brought forward the perspective of the workers directly, and provided a communications channel that previously had been more bottlenecked. Through this channel, the union was able to put forward its perspective, expectations and demands to the employer directly.

Another one of the ways that the workers attempted to assert greater job control was through drafting, finalizing and approving policies by the committee as a whole once it had the large majority of the workplace on board. While at first members of the then-board were receptive to meeting and considering these policies, the director and the lawyer provided advice to the board to not respond to the union as they had been doing. The BWU, perhaps by virtue of its association with the IWW or perhaps because it wasn’t a certified union, was called an “illegitimate union” by the employer’s lawyer. This was used as a pretext for not negotiating or even responding to the union on its workplace demands.

Nonetheless, the employer continued to provide at least the appearance of consultation with the workers. Reality proved to be somewhat different. Following a request from the employer for staff input, the workers voted against hiring a new executive director by a motion at a non-management staff meeting organized by the new staff representative (who had, as previously noted, also been previously elected as the BWU secretary). The hiring proceeded in spite of the objection of a large majority of the workers. Fellow Worker KF observed that “it was a lazy effort to get applicants, and she wasn’t competent.” In terms of management performance, Fellow Worker VJ added that “it cost us more money than what she was being paid, the mistakes that were being made. For example, non-collection of delinquent fees from parents, not applying for available funding, and things like that.” Added KF: “She would rearrange things in the various rooms, even though these were our rooms in which we did our jobs.” In the end, noted VJ, “almost every worker signed a letter demanding that she resign.” This and related workplace pressure tactics eventually secured the desired outcome, while the board itself was reluctant to do anything, perhaps due to having to deal with the fallout of their abrupt termination of the previous executive director and other staff previously to that.

The pressure of an uncertain future with the University of Ottawa, which had been looking to end its relationship with GBCCC, combined with now having to deal with an insurgent union, led to a captive meeting held with all GBCCC employees in late October 2021 with the GBCCC board and executive director, as well as the executive director of Andrew Fleck Children’s Services, a large local child care provider with a bloated management structure that has been gradually taking over independent non-profit child care centers in Ottawa over many years. At this meeting, workers were informed that the only way that they would be able to keep their jobs and the center could be saved would be through acquisition by Andrew Fleck, and that this was the preferred scenario being put forward by the board, the university and the municipal government (which also provides funding to licensed non-profit child care centers). The workers were informed that they would no longer be able to keep their union or their seniority upon amalgamation — a statement which was both incorrect in terms of labor law as well as a likely unfair labor practice complaint in its own right. Workers spoke out against the proposal and came out even more unified, with many saying that they would sooner quit than work under Andrew Fleck’s management.

Going into Fall 2021, the employer was becoming ever more intractable in refusing to deal or communicate with the union. The membership of BWU pushed to file for certification, which was done as an independent trade union, in order to establish very clearly to the employer that the union represented a majority of the workers. When the employer’s lawyer proposed that the “deemed bargaining unit” for whom the vote would be conducted be broadened to include the 5-7 temporary workers – “padding the unit” being a typical tactic used by employers that want to reduce the chance of either a representation vote or a majority in a union election, the BWU accepted the employer’s proposal. (Unbeknownst to the employer, the union was already organizing the temporary staff.) This employer tactic backfired spectacularly when the BWU held a certification vote for a mutually agreed-upon bargaining unit of just under 20 that were all IWW red card holders and BWU members. The count was 100 percent Yes votes from all of the eligible permanent and temporary workforce, once the ballot box was unsealed in December 2022, following the BWU successfully establishing its trade union status before the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

Following the certification vote and related union and public pressure campaign, the board also came under intense criticism from parents at the GBCCC’s annual general meeting in December 2021. The BWU organized around this meeting and as a result a new, pro-union board was elected following the mass resignation of the 2021 board.*

In spite of the union’s wholesale victory in the shop, the future for these members is not and has not been for some time all roses. Bread is also a concern, in that these workers have not had a raise in four years and inflation is now running at seven percent this year. With the change in management, the books were also opened up to the union, and we conducted a fiscal and operational analysis to determine how to transition to a future worker cooperative for the workers at the center – which, along with matching or exceeding the best compensation practices for these employees in the child care sector in Ottawa, remains the central goal of the campaign. To get from here to there will be challenging. For quite some time, the auditor’s annual report on the books of the GBCCC have indicated that there has been ongoing concern about the GBCCC’s viability. The amount of funds spent on lawyers fees alone contributed to a financially precarious situation going into 2022, as did a number of poor management practices. Yet, under the management of seconded BWU members, the center’s operational performance has significantly improved in 2022, in spite of the ongoing challenges created by the uncertain future. Currently the union is looking to have more rotation of bargaining unit members into the interim executive director position, in preparation for future self-management.

While discussions continue outside of the labor relations framework on multiple matters, including compensation and the movement to a pay grid, formal collective bargaining is being put on hold while both the BWU and the new 2022 board of GBCCC work together to secure its future as an on-campus childcare center. (As long as there is a transition to a new governance model as a worker cooperative while existing interim management practices are pro-worker and pro-union with appropriate policies negotiated more informally with the union, it is unlikely that formal collective bargaining will ever be initiated, let alone a first collective agreement signed, as it will prove to be unnecessary.) The BWU has given a lead in building an on-campus coalition beginning in July, which has been meeting weekly and coordinating a pressure campaign against the university. This coalition, in which BWU is a continuous and active participant, now includes all of the campus-based unions for academic and support staff, as well as the two student unions, and meets on a weekly basis to coordinate its work. Most recently, there is a petition that was launched in October as well as information pickets planned for mid-November.

Fellow Worker Alex, a member of the Ottawa-Outaouais GMB who has been working with the campaign since September 2022 observes that “me and my partner hope to send our kid to Bernadette in a few years. We think that it’s ridiculous that the university would not support a worker-run child care center on campus. Being an external organizer on the campaign has been really interesting. The external coalition initiated by the BWU and the campus inter-local has been working well. Clearly these workers are a tight group, with a supportive broader community, and have built up their organization democratically.”

We ask at this juncture for all Fellow Workers to sign and distribute the e-petition and to also send a letter to the university president calling on the university administration to deal fairly with the BWU and GBCCC and our large and growing on- and off-campus coalition who also have a stake in the outcome of this struggle. The BWU and GBCCC board will be sending out a letter prepared by the BWU to the university president and board of governors shortly with the most basic of requests: information and a meeting. We are hoping that signatures on the petition and your own letters of support will help to leverage this outcome. Please don’t hesitate to share your IWW and any other union affiliations!

The BWU will endeavor to keep our fellow workers in the union informed of further developments in the pages of the Industrial Worker. Stay tuned!

-John Hollingsworth, x341916

Nous demandons à tous les camarades de signer et de distribuer la pétition électronique et d’envoyer également une lettre au président de l’université pour demander à l’administration de l’université de traiter équitablement le BWU et la GBCCC ainsi que les membres de notre coalition qui a également un intérêt dans l’issue de cette lutte. Le conseil d’administration de le BWU et de la GBCCC enverra sous peu une lettre préparée par l’BWU au président de l’université et au conseil d’administration avec les demandes les plus élémentaires : des informations et une réunion. Nous espérons que les signatures de la pétition et vos propres lettres de soutien aideront à obtenir ce résultat. N’hésitez pas à nous faire part de vos affiliations à IWW et à tout autre syndicat !

Le BWU s’efforcera de tenir nos camarades informés de l’évolution de la situation dans les pages de l’Industrial Worker. Restez à l’écoute !

*Much of this story is reported elsewhere, including in a local social justice magazine and the university student press, as well as previously in the Industrial Worker, which was also picked up on reddit r/ottawa. Solidarity letters sent in support of the BWU were sent by groups including the full-time professors’ union at the University of Ottawa as well as a local child care advocacy group. Members in Canada can also read the following threads on this topic on Wobforum, which includes all the relevant union documents as well as the OLRB decisions: Decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board on Trade Union Status of Bernadette Workers Union and Fire Your Boss, Part 2.

Announcing Organizer Training 101 for October 2022

It’s that time again fellow workers!

Do you want to form a union at your workplace for better conditions and respect on the job, but don’t know where to start?

The IWW’s Organizer Training (OT101) is there to demystify the union process by breaking it down into simple steps that anyone can follow. Using real world examples from past union drives, roleplays, and advice from longtime union organizers, we’ll help you develop a plan to fight and win together in your workplace.

Due to Covid restrictions, this training will be held online over our virtual meeting hall (BBB) on two Wednesday evenings and two Saturdays.

Each session is 3 hours long with breaks every hour. All sessions must be attended in order to pass the training. Once completed, you’ll be eligible to attend an OT102, as well as the Training4Trainers program should you wish to become a trainer yourself (and we hope you do!)

1st Session: Wed Oct 19th 6:30-9:30pm EST
2nd Session: Sat Oct 22nd 1-4pm EST
3rd Session:Wed Oct 26th 6:30-9:30pm EST
4th Session: Sat Oct 29th 1-4pmEST

What you’ll need:

Laptop or desktop (no phones please) running Firefox or Chrome browser
Microphone and Webcam (headphones encouraged)
Pen and Notebook

Register today

If you’d like to attend, please fill out this form.

Registration is now closed.

Organizer Training 101

Do you want to form a union at your workplace for better conditions and respect on the job, but don’t know where to start?

Due to Covid restrictions, this training will be held online over our virtual meeting hall (BBB) on two Wednesday evenings and two Saturdays.

1st session: Wed Nov 17th 6pm-9pm
2nd session: Sat Nov 20th 1pm-4pm
3rd session: Wed Nov 24th 6pm-9pm
4th session: Sat Nov 27th 1pm-4pm

What you’ll need:

Laptop or desktop (no phones please) running Firefox or Chrome browser
Microphone and Webcam (headphones encouraged)
Pen and Notebook
Copy of the training booklet (email info@ottawaiww.org to request a copy)

Register today

If you’d like to attend, please fill out this form.

Deadline for registration is Nov 10th, 2021

Wine Rack Firing Unfair! – Must negotiate with the IWW or face boycott

By a member of the Ottawa-Outaouais IWW, January 23, 2016

Originally published in The Industrial Worker.

OTTAWA—The Industrial Workers of the World are picketing Wine Rack to defend a member unfairly fired on September 6, 2015.

Our member engaged in his legally-protected right to organize and was publicly engaged in a card-signing campaign by another union in efforts to certify a bargaining unit for Wine Rack locations in Ottawa, Ontario.

Wine Rack is owned by parent company Constellation Brands, a US-based multinational corporation with two billion dollars of profit in 2013. Front-line employees of Wine Rack are paid minimum wage and given only conditional yearly increases lower than the rate of inflation, compounding the difficulties posed by a part-time and unpredictable schedule for workers.

According to the Labour Relations Act, all workers have the right to form, select, and administer a union without interference from the employer. In response to our member’s organizing efforts, Wine Rack manufactured a spurious reason to terminate his employment without following their established disciplinary processes.

The IWW will continue to picket Wine Rack to demand fair treatment for our member until our demand for our member’s reinstatement on the job with back pay is met. All employees deserve to be able to organize without reprisal.

The IWW is calling on Ottawans to not cross our picket line and to respect a boycott of Wine Rack locations until management meets with our union to negotiate.

This is yet another instance of arbitrary firings and disrespect for the Labour Relations Act happening here in Ottawa. Workers can win these fights when they unite and take action. The IWW is a member-run union for all workers and is dedicated to organizing on the job.

For more information contact Ottawa-Outaouais IWW

Ottawa Busker Appeals Conviction

When the City of Ottawa installed speakers and started broadcasting muzak in busker Raymond Loomer’s favourite underpass, he cut the speaker wires one day in May 2009. He then taped the wire on the door of the office door of the Downtown Rideau Business Improvement Area, a business lobby group that has waged a campaign to remove street people and performers from the city centre.

As a tin flute player, he was one of several buskers who relied on the unique acoustics of the downtown Ottawa underpass near the Rideau Centre shopping centre to make a living. Loomer is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He did not take kindly to having his live music replaced by a machine.

“They were playing music to interfere with our industry,” he said.

City police arrested Loomer and charged him with two counts of mischief under $5,000. He was convicted on May 25, 2010 with a sentence of 12 months probation and 20 hours community service. Loomer represented himself and has appealed, saying the city failed to provide bylaw information he could have used in his defense and that he has rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to make a living and freedom of expression. He objected to the community service as “the slave style practices of government” for appropriating his labour power.

Loomer’s appeal will be heard on November 12, 2010 at the city courthouse.

Ottawa had introduced restrictive bylaws requiring street performers to get a license and perform in designated spots chosen by the city. Ontario’s Safe Streets Act, brought in to target squeegee kids, buskers and other street people making a living on the province’s streets, has set the stage for tighter controls on informal workers.

1920: Organize the Lumber Workers!

LUMBER WORKERS

OF ONTARIO

Pamphlet produced in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, dated 1920.

Do you realize that you are the most important factor in one of the three greatest industries in Canada? Lumber was at one time produced without the aid of the faithful horse or of gas and steam power machinery. But lumber has never been produced without labour power! That means YOU!

Although lumbering today is simplified and greatly aided by modern machinery, of which the band-saw and the tractor may be quoted as instances; the lumber industry still requires the services of wage workers. Even with modern machinery and the much boasted improved methods, there still must be axemen, sawyers, rollers, skidders, etc. (and snuff chewers of course), in order that lumber and pulp may be produced to supply those needs of humanity that only the products of the forests can fill. Without the raw material that you produce there would be no pulp and paper mills. No lumber for the building of houses, factories, docks, ships, railway coaches and cars, and the many other structures and products of wood do necessary to industry. In short, without the material made available by the labours of lumber workers, there could be no industry and civilization as we know it today. Consider this. Without lumber we would still be living in thatched huts. We could never have advanced to our present stage of civilization.; Lumber workers you have made civilization possible! Why then can you not enjoy the fruits of man’s material and intellectual advancement? Why must you, who have supplied the material for the building of palaces, be condemned to spend your nights (you have nothing else to spend) in filthy bunk houses at your work places, and equally filthy flop-houses in town when unemployed? You produce wealth and exist in poverty! Not because you have produced too little: but because you receive for yourselves so little of what you produce.

Have you never stopped to consider that the logs and pulp-wood sticks that you cut, and the ties you hack, are worth a great deal more than the wages you receive? It is as plain as the nose on your face; and the boss paid you (in wages) the full value of what you produce, that there would be no profits left for him. It is clear that he robs you of the greater part of your product – but how?

Let us put it this way. If you cut in one day one hundred logs (most of you put in even bigger counts) and the boss said to you at the end of the day: “Jack, out of the 100 logs you have cut I will let you keep 15 logs as your wages and I will take the remaining 85 logs, you would reply: “Hell, no! that ain’t a square deal!” We use these figures, the 100 and the 15, because the figures compiled by the government statisticians show that on average, “all persons gainfully employed” in the industries of Canada receive about 15 per cent of their production as wages. It should be remembered, however, that the government ‘figure-twister’ (that’s what statistician means) has included salaried executives who get several thousand a year instead of $30.00 or so a month. When this fact is taken into consideration, “Jock’s” 15 shrinks to about 8. When we put it this way it is easy to see that you are being robbed.

You will easily see and understand how the big bosses of the lumber woods can afford mansions and motor cars if you just take a pencil and do a little simple arithmetic. Having set aside the high salaried executives we found Jack’s share to be eight; but even allowing the government figures, the big boss get 85 logs. If he had only one set of sawyers cutting for him he would have only a modest income, but no boss is satisfied with “Chicken-feed.” Tho’ many employers hire thousands of workers we will take an easy round number, 100, to illustrate our point. One hundred workers each producing 100 logs equals a total product of 10,000 logs. The employer’s share is 85 out of every 100, or 8,500, while the remaining 1,500 logs are DIVIDED BETWEEN 100 workers! The difference between 8,500 and 15 is equal to the difference between a ragged pair of overalls and a dress suit.

It is not because your boss, as an individual is stronger than you that he takes the 85, but because the bosses are ORGANIZED. The power of economic organization enables the bosses to keep under their thumb the machinery of production and the sources of raw material, woods, mines, etc. They who own and control the means of life, the machinery of production and distribution, are the rulers of the world. They did not grow the trees, put minerals into the ground, and build the factories and mills, and the machinery in the, but they claim ownership of all these things.

Nature grew the trees and formed the mineral deposits. In fact, the whole material world and all living things and creatures, including man himself, are a part of nature. Labour, using material provided by nature, has built factories to work in and machines to work with-and jails to be confined in for disobedience to the boss’ orders. All men and women are entitled to what nature may have given and what they may have produced by their own efforts. The boss has no more right to keep your product for himself than the louse has to the blood of your body. Louse and boss are both parasites. Then why in the name of common sense do you boil the one and bow to the other?

What you think to be the power of the boss is simply the power that your lack of organization gives the boss. He is not going to part with any more than he must without a struggle. You suffer unsanitary camp conditions and work long hours for very small pay because you are not organized to TAKE more pay, shorten the hours of labour and get better conditions.

If Worker and Boss were two individuals you would think it very foolish of the Worker if he went up to the Boss and said: ” Naughty Boss, yuo have stolen 85 of my logs, I shall strike you with my little finger.” But if the Worker organized his five fingers into a fist and hit the boss a poke in the mush, you would all shout: “Atta boy Jack!” As the Boss fell backward over a windfall. The worker who meows in the bunk house and goes alone to the boss asking for more wages, or whatever he may want, is trying to knock the boss down with a little finger. For workers to organize themselves into a UNION and STRIKE for what they want is to HIT the boss with the all powerful FIST of economic power! What do we mean by “economic power?”

There was a time when all things that man required were produced: made ready for use: by hand labour, aided only by hand-made tools and weapons. This was a time when there were no factories; a time when even a man with the imagination of a Jules Verne had not yet dreamed of machinery. Man secured food and clothing in that early day by the use of bow and arrow, spear, and fishing net. But these things were useless unless set into action by the mental direction and muscular energy of man himself. It would have been silly of our skin-clad ancestor of the long ago to say to his crude weapons: “Go you into the forest my worthy bow and arrow and my trusty spear and fetch me a haunch of venison.” “Now you, my good fishing net, go and secure me an armful of herring from yonder shoals.” If this had been man’s mental attitude he would still be waiting for the venison and would never have tasted herring. This is just another way of saying that labour-power is the one factor that is absolutely necessary to production either with the crude tools and weapons of long ago or the highly perfected and ingenious machine of to-day. As it is the one essential factor in industry, if you withdraw your labour-power, go on strike, the tools and machinery would lie idle and utterly useless. By this simple act you would stop production and thus cut off the boss’ profits. Your ability to paralyze industry is your ECONOMIC POWER. We see then that Labour’s weapon in the fight for higher wages, shorter hours, better conditions, and finally the ownership of industry, is Economic Power. We see then that Labour’s weapon in the fight for higher wages, shorter hours, better conditions, and finally the ownership of industry, is Economic Power. Labour holds this power because Labour is the one essential factor in industry. In the face of these facts there can only be ONE reasonable answer to the question: “Where and how should we organize?” We must organize in INDUSTRY, as WORKERS! Why are so few of us organized?

It is to the master’s interest to keep us unorganized for we are helpless and therefore easy victims to his greed for profits as long as we are not organized to take those profits away from him. The master’s ownership of industry (the means of lifge) gives him control over the schools. He also owns the newspapers and will only allow them to print what iti is to his interest that the workers should read-and believe.; With school and press at his command he has created racial, religious, and other unfounded prejudices in the minds of the workers. While the workers are busy fighting one another as British, French, Dagoes and so on and as Catholic and Protestant, the boss is stealing the 85’s. The boss is a firm believer in Caesar’s motto: “Divide and rule.

The I.W.W. says: “Food, clothing and shelter are produced by Labour, using the tools and machinery of production to transfer raw materials, provided by nature into usable shape. The raw materials were not created by “nationality” or “religion.” The tools and machinery were produced by Labour, not by “State” or “Church.” Nationality, and religion then have no place in industry. It makes no difference to the boss what country you come from or what church you go to-or whether you go to any church. His only concern is, can you produce wealth for him.

In industry we are not divided into a number of races but into two classes. The class that produces and does not possess-The Working Class-And the class that possesses but does not produce-The Ruling (parasite) Class.

The man who works beside you is not a Britisher, Frenchman or Dagoe; neither is he a Catholic or a Protestant. He is a worker just as you are. As workers you are all robbed by the boss, regardless of race or creed. It is your common interest as workers to disregard race and creed and organize to win back what the boss has stolen from you.

In conclusion we will try to put the message of the I.W.W. into a few simple words. It is this.

“Workers! many years of struggling against the boss in the interests of Labour has taught us many valuable lessons. We have learned that to divide the workers of one industry into a number of unions; such as a teamsters’ union, swampers’ union and so on in the woods, weakens rather than strengthens the workers. It “allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars,” as our Preamble so truly states.”

“Our experiences and a study of industry has shown us that lumber workers could not produce lumber unless other workers provided food, clothing and tools they require. That other industries are dependent upon the products of the lumber worker. All industries are dependent upon one another and can only carry on as so many units organized into a One Big Union of Industry.” “In the heat of many fierce battles against the boss we have learned that the bosses are all organized into a One Big Union of Bosses to fight against the workers to maintain their own position as the rulers of the world.” “Recognizing these facts we call upon all workers, in every industry, in all countries, to set aside all racial and other hatreds and prejudices.” “To organize the many industrial units of workers into One Big Industrial Union of the Working Class.” Our immediate demands are: Higher Wages: Shorter Hours: Better Conditions: Our final aim: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS.

Add to the strength of the I.W.W. by joining it, the one little unit of economic power that is yours. In this way your power will increase to the extent of the many thousands of units of economic power that comprise: THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD.

Literature Can Be Obtained from the following Branches:

512½ Second Ave., Seattle, Washington.

227½ Yamhill Street, Portland, Ore.60 Cordova Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

260 Bay Street, Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada.

223 N. Benard Street, Spokane, Washington.

… 464, Duluth, Minn.

… Sacramento, Calif.

… rcadero Street, San Francisco, Calif.

…5 Kasota Building, Minneapolis…

318 N. Wyoming Street, Butte, Mont.

555 West Lake Street, Chicago, Ill.

Box 800 City Hall Station, New York, N.Y.

206 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, Minn.

434 Bryson Block, Los Angeles, Calif.

Don’t depend on the Capitalist class papers for the news and the truth about the working class. Read the I.W.W. papers. Industrial Solidarity, printed at Chicago, and the Industrial Worker, printed at Seattle, booth weeklies with a $2.00 subscription rate carry all the news of interest to workers. Subscribe now!

28 Alder St., Sudbury, Ont.

138 Schreiber St., Sudbury, Ont.

314 Bay St., Port Arthur, Ont.

Panhandlers Claim Victory

Andrew Nellis of the Ottawa Pandhandlers Union said the group has reached a settlement after filing a $1-million lawsuit against the city last year.

The lawsuit accused the city of violating panhandlers’ constitutional rights by putting up a fence at the underpass across from Chateau Laurier. Nellis ended up being charged after he snipped a lock off the fence.

On Tuesday, Nellis said the panhandlers and city reached a deal but an agreement on confidentiality prevented him from going into details. Sounded like the settlement might involve allowing the panhandlers to use some property for a street art gallery.

Nellis is claiming victory.

“It won’t be the first victory we have, either,” he said.

In the same breath, Nellis said the panhandlers group plans to sue the city again if an updated nuisance bylaw comes into force for roads and sidewalks. The bylaw passed the transportation committee meeting Wednesday.

Interview: The IWW and the Ottawa Panhandlers Union

Disclaimer – The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.

By Dave – originally posted to anarkismo.net, January 27, 2008

(Dave interviewed Ottawa anarchist Andrew Nellis for Linchpin. Andrew is an organizer with the Ottawa Panhandlers Union.)

Q. What is the Ottawa Panhandlers Union and how was it started?

A. The Ottawa Panhandlers Union is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It’s a real union. What we do is run by the panhandlers themselves. The IWW has one paid member for the entire union. It’s entirely member run. The idea is to empower people on the street to fight for themselves.

Ideally despite coming in as an outside organizer I’ll be able to step out of the picture once the organization is up and running and there’s a structure in place to ensure that the organization continues. I was on the street myself. I’m not on the street now. So I do know something about the milieu in which I’m working.

Ideally it [the Panhandlers Union] should be run by people who are actually on the street but in practice we find that our most valuable members are those who have just come off the street or are in the process of getting off the streets. Their lives are somewhat less chaotic than people who are actually on the street although we do have some [key] people who are hardcore street. It always impresses me. I’m so proud of all of these people. For example, the guy who writes our press releases has to leave the room every 15 minutes or so to take a sip of hand sanitizer As you may be aware people who are heavily addicted to alcohol stand a one in three chance of death if they go through withdrawal so they have to drink alcohol continuously just to survive The fact that someone who is dealing with this many crises in his own life is capable of not only functioning but contributing something to the welfare of others around him. It’s just really humbling for me to work with someone like that considering the many sacrifices that he’s got to be making in his own life are so much larger than anything I’m expected to give.

Q Could you give some examples of some of the problems that are faced by panhandlers and homeless people in Ottawa that the Panhandlers Union was formed to help resist.

A I can tell you that although things were bad before the new police chief, they’ve become infinitely worse since. The new police chief has the “broken windows” philosophy. He believes that you can stop big crimes by stopping little crimes. He’s ordered his police officers to stop issuing tickets and begin arresting panhandlers. It costs $185 a day to keep someone in jail and they’re more than willing to pay that to keep panhandlers off the street than providing supported housing is infinitely cheaper they prefer using enforcement for something it was never designed to do.
We were forced to start a Copwatch program because the police are openly and blatantly breaking the law. We have had many cases where its been reported to us that the police have stolen the panhandlers’ money, roughed them up, and told them not to come back or they’d be beaten. One night I had to start guard under the bridge by the Rideau Centre because the street kids there had been informed by a police officer that if they were there when he came back he was going to – and I quote – “boot-fuck” them. So I went there with a recorder and I warned the police that I’d be there all night with my recorder. This is the kind of stuff that we do.

We do a lot of advocacy work. We have one member who is schizophrenic and he was picked up in an ambulance and he was [held] involuntarily at the Montfort Hospital in their psychiatric wing. And he requested our assistance in getting his doctors to agree to let him go to school since he has a law degree from Russia and he’s in the process of updating his credentials here in Canada. His doctors were concerned about letting him go by himself to his classes so we went there to tell them that we’d have a person willing to go with him to the classes if necessary to assure them that he wouldn’t be a danger to himself or others. What was particularly gratifying for me was that while the doctors did not want to talk to us, it took us several hours to buttonhole the doctor, once he heard the name Industrial Workers of the World, he was at great pains to assure us that that they very sensitive to his cultural and religious needs, and that they were not discriminating against him. When I tried to get a word in edgewise to assure him we were not there to complain about his treatment but to make sure that he was able to attend his classes.

This is the kind of work that we do. A lot of it is in the background. A lot of people think that because our most visible efforts revolve around things like marching in the street, or egging the BIA that this is [all of] what we do. In fact 99% of what we do is just quiet support work for the streets that particularly teaches people where to go, how to wend their way through the paperwork of police complaints, to make sure they turn in their tickets [under the Safe Streets Act] to the Ticket Defense Program and see benefits of what standing together can do.

We have one member right now who is an organizer with the IWW. He came to us because he had been beaten up by Rideau Centre security. Immediately after getting out of the hospital, he contacted us. We got our video cameras and documented his injuries, I got him in contact with a lawyer, Yavar Hamid. As a result, we sued the Rideau Centre in superior court for $70,000. The Rideau Centre settled.

Q. How is the Panhandlers Union structured internally?

A. The IWW is not an anarchist organization. Our constitution actually forbids us as members from promoting and political or anti- political party. The organization itself runs in an anarchist manner. We have no hierarchy. At meetings everybody takes turns, everybody is expected to be either the chair or recording secretary and at every meeting it changes so that everybody gets to see and develop the skills necessary for running a meeting. It’s very important for the continuation of the kinds of traditions that we are trying to build for the organization.

For many people this the first time they’ve ever had any responsibility in a social sense, and its very gratifying to see someone who started out at the beginning of a meeting very nervous and unsure of themselves actually telling someone like me to shut up and let other people talk.

Q. Earlier [before the interview] we were talking about the backlash that has been felt by the Panhandlers Union and yourself. Could tell me a little about that?

A. We’ve experienced some amount of backlash from the police towards the organization. It’s become particularly bad lately since we’ve started the Copwatch program. It started in earnest perhaps a year ago when someone logging in from the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton [IP address] vandalized the Panhandlers Union Wikipedia article saying that “Mr. Nellis,” that is myself, “really, really, really needs to get a life” and saying that the members of this union are a “parasitical blight on the city of Ottawa.” These changes were edited back fairly quickly but it was only discovered as a result of the release of the Wiki Scanner tool. The official response from City Hall was “No Comment.” I’ve subsequently discovered that the police use the same system that City Hall do. Whoever made these changes might well have been within the police station as well as inside City Hall.

Since then there have been posters put up on Ottawa city streets saying things like “Don’t feed the human pigeons” This is in response to Mayor Larry O’Brien’s statement in which he compared panhandlers to pigeons stating that if you don’t feed them they’ll go away. During the election campaign he [O’Brien] compared panhandlers to seagulls at the Carp Dump saying that in order to keep the seagulls away, occasionally you have to shoot one.

The second set of posters that went up, we believe by the same people, featured myself with a gun in my mouth in a circle with a line through it saying “Panhandlers follow your leader” with [a picture of] the mayor standing in the background grinning. I can only take this as a death threat.

We’ve recently had the Panhandlers Union [Wikipedia] articles deleted by a false flag campaign launched by someone who also we believe hijacked my internet account. Someone contacted Sympatico, my ISP, identified themselves as me and asked for my password. We know that that the first time this did not work because Sympatico Security contacted me to tell me my password which I informed at the time them that it was not me [requesting the information]. We put a special password on my account which was supposed to prevent anything like this from happening and which would require the person to give a password to identify themselves as me if they called. Apparently this did not work because within a couple of weeks someone had hijacked my e-mail, deleted a week worth of personal e-mail, vandalized my blog, attacked an anarchist IRC channel I founded and helped facilitate, and generally made my life very miserable on the internet. Whoever did this used servers they had hijacked in Pakistan and Hong Kong.

The Wikipedia campaign to delete the Panhandlers Union article – someone identified themselves in the discussion as a member of the Panhandlers Union, gave details of his arrest records, the fact that he was Hepatitis C positive, details that only the police would know about this man. We know it was not the panhandler himself who posted this because he was at the time homeless. And we know that whoever posted this was [also] using servers in Pakistan and Hong Kong. We have reason to believe it was the same person [who hacked Andrew’s internet account] who posted these messages. And in these messages he ranted about fascists and police and said that he had voted numerous times to keep the article. This gave Wikipedia administrators the excuse to delete the article out of hand by ignoring all calls to keep it. The Wikipedia article is currently deleted and no record of it ever having existed remains including the evidence that the City of Ottawa or the police had vandalized it.

Q. Do you think that the Panhandlers Union in Ottawa is a model that could be applied to other cities? Has there been interest in trying to develop Panhandlers Unions in other cities?

A. Yes. In fact I’ve been in a number of presentations on street organizing. It’s a very different milieu from what most organizers are used to. The street has its own rules. It’s stylized and ritualized not all that different than lets say a medieval Chinese court. It’s a very different place.

When you’re dealing with people as oppressed as people on the street are, it’s extremely important not to come across as an authority figure. Often the temptation is there to present yourself as leader and this must be resisted at all costs because the street will try to turn a person into a personality and it will become a cult of personality in which the personality is more important than the movement. While there can be short term results, eventually the organization falls apart when this person leaves.

The street is extremely hierarchical. There is usually a dominant alpha male. It’s very patriarchal. Often it’s racist and homophobic. I should add that it’s probably no more so than any other sector of society but because people live much closer to the bone there’s not as much lying about it. People are very straightforward about their prejudices.

So because of all these things which exist on the street, it’s important that the organizer establish from the very beginning that its about the organizational structure and that its not about the individual. If it’s about the individual, the structure is never going to survive. The reason to have an organizer when one is organizing on the street is to make sure that there is a structure.

The entire reason [many] people are on the street is that they cannot live in a highly structured scenario. There is nothing wrong with this but it is very difficult to keep an organization going when there is no structure to it. In order to ensure that it survives it’s necessary to create a tradition. And this takes many, many years. There is no short way to do this. And the way you do this is by giving people successes, by showing them that what you’re doing works. On the street people don’t have enough resources to take risks so they tend to do what works for them. If it’s already working they are loathe to change it. In a very real sense they are very conservative. In order to break through this it is necessary to give them successes and show them that working together is better than working by themselves. The only way to do that is by slowly building people’s trust and to show them that if they work together there is an advantage to them personally.

Q. Could you tell me a about your own politics and how you became an anarchist.

A. I identify as an anarcho-syndicalist and I am a member of the IWW. I believe that the union structure provides a very viable means of building resistance to the current system. Anarcho-syndicalism I believe is important because it will not only allow us to build an army within capitalism itself while continuing to function but will allow us to create a structure which will continue to exist when capitalism will have been destroyed.

A lot of the problem we face is that there’s always a sense of immediacy. We’re always looking at the next battle and never at the longer strategic plan. And we see the results of that in what’s happened thus far in anarchist movements. For example in Spain and the Ukraine where people were not careful about who they chose as allies and were crushed as a result. Anarchists have a history of winning on the battlefield and losing in the halls of power. I think its very important that we develop long-term strategic plans for dealing with our success rather than planning for our failures.

Q. What do you see as some of the strengths and weaknesses of anarchist organizing in Ottawa?

A. It’s interesting. I often get the feeling from anarchists that they really don’t believe that anarchism works. It’s a strange thing to say but often people seem to feel that anarchism is something you need to weave life into, that it requires extra effort to put a slather of anarchism across whatever structure it is that they create but it gives me a feeling that people don’t have faith that anarchism itself works. It’s not a chore that you need to apply to whatever it is you’re actually doing. Anarchism works. I’ve seen it in action. I’ve seen people who are oppressed and beaten down and frightened empowered by what anarchism has done for them. I’ve seen people on the street who’ve literally been beaten down. We have a man who was beaten so badly be Rideau Centre security that he nearly lost the use of his eye and yet through solidarity through what he saw anarchism was able to do for him he is now today an anarchist organizer himself. And its gratifying to see that he’s taken control of his life. He has a good paying job. He has a permanent home. And he’s using these advantages now to teach other people the value of anarchist organizing. These techniques don’t need to be grudgingly applied. They need to be lovingly embraced. They work. If you actually use them they work. It is such a thrill the first time you see it actually working, not just in theory but in practice. It’s easy to see why those original anarchists were so passionate why they continued to work into their eighties and nineties why they sang on the gallows, because anarchism is a revolutionary idea in every sense of the word. It gives a person such joy to see that it is capable of empowering people to take control of their own lives.

Abbie Hoffman said that a revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power and that’s perfectly true and valid but the opposite is also true. A revolution in the distribution of power will be meaningless unless there’s also a revolution in consciousness, It starts inside and continues on into the world outside of us.