Happy International Workers Day to all our members, supporters, friends, and family out there! We hope your May First – the Workers’ Holiday – was fun and relaxing, or if you used the day to push the fight to the bosses, we trust it was productive and inspiring!
What you have in front of you is the first of hopefully many SON HUELGAZ newsletters. Before we get into the nitty gritty, I suppose this should go without saying, but, Wobblies are people! We have ambitions, passions, hobbies, and visions of a better future that we try to manifest day by day. Life is awesome! What better reason to despise Waged Labor?!? Our time is stolen for the benefit of the few while We The Workers are left scrounging for energy and daylight to pursue the things we truly love. The labor of organizing pushes us closer to everyone being able to share the good things in life. However, the IWW is not about working ourselves to death in hopes of arriving at some imaginary finish line. Let’s enjoy the journey the best we can and ease each other’s struggles along the way! So, what have Arizona Wobblies been up to this past month?
Fellow Workers in Tucson are beginning a new recruiting drive. If you have friends and family in the Tucson area, let them know about the IWW and direct them to our growing Branch there. Tucson Wobblies have been discussing their interest in fighting the climate crisis and connecting to the IWW’s Environmental Unionist Caucus. They have been discussing the destructive role of capitalism in general but also our individual employers who have never heard of the concept of “saving the planet”. In a discussion of all the egregious waste we have seen at our own workplaces, FW Ryan gave us the gem: “Workers should be performing environmental impact audit on their employers. Organizing committees to confront wasteful work practices.”
Tucson members are also teaching and learning the ancient game Go. Surely there’s much to apply to organizing and life in general from such a strategy-intense game. A revolutionary Go group? Why the heck not? Stay tuned if you would like to join the group!
Sculpting and drawing are recurring topics in the TUC discord. Dioramas, leather work, and, naturally, Sabo kitty interpretations pop up in the mix.
FW L and her partner have a future Wobbly on the way! Congratulations! In PHX, one of our members just gained U.S. citizenship AND has a little one on the way, Congrats FW D!
TUC has just started a Facebook group and have a new Reddit page as well. Join them and put in your two cents if you use either platform!
For those interested in learning some more labor history, FW Izzy suggests James Connolly’s work: “While Connolly’s language is a bit aged and may be difficult to read, I highly recommend his short booklets on labor history. Still very relevant to the labor movement today.”
Up here in the Phoenix area, branch members are starting gardens, playing punk rock, learning Spanish, and taking Organizer Training to put the bosses in their place!
With all this personal development, it would be hard to imagine that the Phoenix IWW’s Campaigns Committee has six active workplace campaigns they are juggling. But hey, life is not all “fight, fight, fight”, right? You gotta laugh sometimes, too.
On May Day Eve, April 30th, there was a kickass May Day Punk show at Double Nickels Collective in Tempe, organized by Wobblies and supporters. It was all ages and it raised money for the Incarcerated Workers’ Organizing Committee (IWOC-IWW).
Aquí está la nueva revista de les Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo en Arizona y Sonora. Buscamos compañeres que quieren participar e involucrarse en la lucha de nuestro sindicato. Quieres compartir tus experiencias en la chamba? Escribe para SON HUELGAZ! El Gran Sindicato está organizando y creciendo – una pesadilla para los patrones! Contacte la rama IWW en tu área para juntarte a un comité de organización. Solidaridad!!
In person Wobbly Wednesdays are starting up again at Pierce Park in East Central Phoenix! We may start coordinating separate meetups across the valley since Phoenix is gigantic. It’s been great chatting with Wobs person to person, so check the Discord or contact a Delegate to find out when members are meeting up!
As the Starbucks saga unfolds IWW members continue showing solidarity with unionizing workers! The IWW spent over a decade putting the fire under Starbucks’ a$$ and we’re not letting them off the hook! Give ‘em Hell!
In the midst of the hectic day to day grind, the SON HUELGAZ Editorial Committee is brewing up articles behind the scenes! Be patient, We’ve got a ton of great stuff on the near horizon! We’re talking with Fellow Workers and getting the details of their daily work struggles. We’re building biographies of what it’s like to be a rank and file human these days. Lots to look forward to, stay tuned!
2022 SON HUELGAZ Editorial Committee
