Re: [olympiaworkers] meeting thursday

Thanks for keeping such good notes and passing them on. I regret that
for personal reasons, (I've been spending too much time away from my
family @ ILWU meetings in Portland recently) I need to prioritize my
family over attending this meeting. I will however try to find someone
else who might attend in my place. Regardless I would still like to
have the minutes forwarded and would like to keep contact between this
new group and Local 5 ILWU @ Evergreen.

I thought of a possible name acronym/name for our group, (get ready...)
O.W.L. - Olympia Workers Logistics ! What do you think? Sounds almost
intellectual but the owl flies on silent wings through the night to
hunt its prey in the dark.

Anyway I'm going to miss being with the energy of the group but hold a
space for me in spirit. Solidarity.

Jens Eventyr
IlWU Local 5 Bargaining Unit Representative

On Monday, February 26, 2007, at 10:24 AM, olympiaworkers@riseup.net
wrote:

> There will be a general labor organizing and strategizing session this
> thursday (march 1st) at 6:30 at Media Island (816 Adams St. SE - near
> the
> downtown Olympia library). It's a potluck so bring some food.
>
> If you want any items on the agenda, please say what you want by
> responding to this email.
>
> So far we'll be talking about general plans and goals, active
> organizing
> campaigns (restaurants and day labor), the IWW Starbucks action in
> Seattle
> March 21st and Fire Yoru Boss trainings.
>
>
> Posted below are the notes from the last meeting:
>
> Labor organizing/strategy meeting notes:
>
> In attendance: Jon, Paul, Jens, Lindsey, Tom, Evan, Brendan. Members of
> ILWU Local 5 and IWW as well as non-union members were present.
>
> This is what we decided to work on:
>
> 1. Establishing a "Fire Your Boss" training. (Olympia IWW held these in
> the late 1990s.) This training would teach workers about solidarity
> unionism, NLRB/NLRA and labor law, general understanding of worker
> power,
> organizing and unionizing, workplace democracy and improvements on the
> job. We decided that a workshop like this could be held at Evergreen,
> SPSCC, Olympia and Lacey - it should be made as accessible as possible
> to
> workers who are often ignored.
>
> 2. Social mapping of Olympia businesses. This will include researching
> where there are trends of corporatization, property and income of
> business
> owners, where there are "hot" workplaces (places where there are a
> number
> of problems at a job site and where workers are interested in
> organizing).
> Specific interest was given to the bicycle and restaurant industries,
> as
> well as organizing day laborers.
>
> 3. Flyering and canvassing was also discussed to give information to
> workers and to start a face-to-face dialogue.
>
> 4. The creation and distribution of labor and union literature.
>
> Here's our "homework":
>
> Brendan and Lindsey agreed to meet to discuss establishing an agenda
> and
> co-facilitating for the next meeting so it runs smoothly and
> efficiently.
>
> Paul wants to research and help develop contacts with other labor and
> labor rights organizations (Jobs with Justice, etc.). Jon wants to
> help
> research labor material.
>
> Jon and Brendan are going to raid the Evergreen Labor Center, and
> Bread
> and Roses for OWA literature and other labor-related literature.
>
> Evan and Jens agreed to either bring food (or suggested a potluck) for
> the
> next meeting in 3 weeks.
>
> Every person has to bring 2 new people to the next meeting.
>
> We also discussed:
>
> -The Free Choice Act. (Perhaps we can make petitions, etc. for this.)
> -Unionizing versus cooperatives. Jon recommended people read an IWW
> writing on this which can be found at
> http://www.iww.org/en/join/collectives.shtml (A longer pdf version is
> at
> the bottom of the page.).
> -The ILWU Del Monte food boycott at Evergreen and the No Sweat
> campaign.
> -The Starbucks Workers Union IWW protest and action planned around the
> annual Starbucks shareholders meeting in Seattle March 21st.
>
> -We also decided not to have an official group name (yet) and not to be
> the OWA because of some concerns with the OWA in the past.
>
> -We also agreed that we wanted to work hard to reach out to workers not
> just at Evergreen and downtown. We want to reach out to workers at the
> Mall, Lacey, etc.
>
> The next meeting will be at 6:30 at Media Island on Thursday March 1.
>