Under the Radar

“If you had told me a few months ago that thousands of people would take to the streets to complain about our political system, I would have found it hard to believe, because it looked like we were an apathetic generation that was incapable of responding to a crisis even when it was destroying our jobs like a tsunami.”

—Protester Maria Subinas, in reference to the 2011 anti-austerity demonstrations in Spain

“For too long, we’ve been left after Election Day holding a canceled check, waving it about—‘Remember us? Remember us? Remember us?’—asking someone to pay a little attention to us . . . I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a snootful of that shit!”

—AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, frustrated with the failure of the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and other labor law reforms

Tucson Student Activists Shut Down School Board Meeting

A group of high school students in Tucson, Arizona took direct action to prevent their local school board from voting to downgrade, and potentially eliminate, Mexican-American studies courses. With 150 protesters outside and an additional 100 supporters inside the building, a group of students stormed the stage before the meeting was set to begin and chained themselves to the speakers’ chairs. The students led the crowd, chanting, “Our education is under attack, what do we do? Fight back,” until the meeting was finally cancelled.

Last year, Arizona outlawed any courses that promote the overthrow of the government, are “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group,” or “advocate ethnic solidarity.” The bill’s main target was Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program, which the state superintendent promptly declared in violation of the law. He has since threatened to defund the district if it does not comply. While the local school system claims the program must be cut for budgetary reasons, the students clearly put their struggle in the context of the state’s anti-immigrant legislation—which they have reframed as also “anti-indigenous.”

Among the students’ ten demands are: no school closures, the expansion of ethnic studies, local control over education, and the immediate removal from power of some of the state’s leading politicians, including Governor Jan Brewer.

Ninety Thousand Workers Strike in Botswana, Africa’s “Model of Stability”

The mineral-rich Southern African country of Botswana was brought to a standstill by a public sector strike. The strike is the largest challenge to the pro-Western Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) that has held power since 1966. The BDP has cultivated the image of the small country as a “model of stability,” using its vast diamond deposits to ensure steady economic growth. But tensions immediately rose after the government froze public sector wages at the start of the global economic crisis.

Now ninety thousand workers are on strike, demanding a 16 percent raise. The country’s economy grew by 7.2 percent last year, but the government claims that the budget deficit prevents significant raises. Opposition parties have joined the labor protests and called for Botswana to replicate the North African uprisings that overthrew longstanding governments in early 2011.

New Global Alliance Takes New Tact against Anti-Union Stalwart

Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, an IBM employee organization, has joined forces with several international unions to create the Global Union Alliance, which aims to “strengthen cooperation and implement joint action, with a view to engaging IBM in dialogue at the global level and increasing union membership at IBM.” Using intimidation, firings, and plant closures, the blue-chip technology firm has long stymied unionization attempts and reduced its U.S. workforce by fifteen thousand in recent years by outsourcing to China and India. Seemingly unable to stop this trend on a nation-by-nation basis, the global alliance has endeavored to give IBM headaches wherever it goes. It announced its first day of international coordinated action for June 14, 2011, the company’s one hundredth anniversary. IBM workers will be wearing black and blue to bring attention to job cuts and declining work conditions.

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