Wow! What a year for the rebel slaves!!
The Great Resignation! Union organizing everywhere! Strikes, strikes, and more strikes!! Unions are on the move across the country and the IWW is still riding a wave of new members. Workers are finding the One Big Union and joining up in unprecedented numbers – right here in the Copper State!
Then there is the “housing crisis” also known as hoarding and land theft; the totally fake and fabricated “labor shortage” which is really the “General-General Strike” in action; and the constant economic battle over “who’s going to pay for what?” – commonly mis-labeled “inflation”. Looming on the horizon, however, is a new fascistic American right wing that have discarded both democracy and rational thinking as well as total climate collapse. Who can say where it will all lead?
2021, the second year of the covid pandemic, was certainly a year of fights, much like 2020. We have won some, lost some, and have been nearly exhausted at times. Yet we must carry on, Fellow Workers!
In Phoenix, Wobblies made a valiant effort organizing at a targeted grocery store, kept a consistent distribution of mutual aid supplies and support to working class people in tough circumstances, and built a Campaigns Committee for the Phoenix GMB for better coordination of organizing leads and campaigns. We lent a hand to the UNITE HERE restaurant workers strike at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport and have been celebrating the Union YES vote by Starbucks workers in Mesa. Way to go, Union “Partners”!
Wobblies in Tucson skirmished with a small-fry food cart employer, a call center, and some public school and adult education bosses. We continue supporting workers joining the United Campus Workers (CWA) organizing efforts at the University of Arizona as well as a promising lead in social services. We also lent a hand to a victorious union vote among EMT ambulance drivers who joined the International Association of Fire Fighters in Southern Arizona. Congrats, union friends!
We still have a ways to go in building the IWW in smaller towns in Arizona and in the major cities of Sonora. That was a SON HUELGAZ goal for 2021 that we didn’t make enough progress on. With greater effort in 2022, we hope to report progress on the IWW’s expansion around the region soon. Meanwhile, interest continues to build among Arizona Wobblies in targeting the Tech industry, Scientific research labs, public and charter schools, more grocery stores, and everyone’s nemesis – the Serpentor of global capitalism – Amazon. Watch us grow powerful!
SON HUELGAZ Goals for 2022:
1.) Charter an IWW Branch for Northern Arizona based in Flagstaff – with articles from Northern AZ.
2.) Support our members in Prescott, Bisbee, Nogales, and elsewhere in building an IWW Committee in their town – with material relevant to small town rebel workers.
3.) Gather together our friends in Hermosillo, Nogales, and Cananea to create an IWW Sonora committee – much material can be had to bring together our IWW friends in Mexico. We hope to have lots of this for 2022.
3.) Launch workplace organizing campaigns, train and develop our members, publicize and promote workers fighting back all over Arizona and Sonora – we’re going to have a ton of industry specific organizing and agitational material.
Help the work along!
SON HUELGAZ Co-Editors for 2022: J. Pierce, et al.
