Update from a strike supporter
Dear Friends, In case you haven't heard, Borders Store #1 in Ann Arbor, MI is on strike. This strike calls for a national boycott of Borders, Waldenbooks, and Amazon.com. Borders employees at the store voted for the union (United Food and Commercial Workers) last December, and have been trying since then to get a contract. No reasonable offer has been forthcoming from management, so the workers voted to strike and walked out on November 8, 2003. The picket line is thin, and the UFCW has not put a lot of effort into helping, even though they encouraged the strike, so this is an extrememly bare bones and grass roots effort. I've been on the picket line myself several days and am working on helping to organize community support. I'm discouraged by the numbers of people crossing the picket line to do their shopping as usual (I don't know about you, but my granny taught me to NEVER cross a picket line), and the lack of publicity about the strike, but also inspired by the folks who stop by to help with picketing or drop off food for the picketers, or just offer kind words of support. Two young women from the Starbucks across the street brought coffee for everyone the other night! Other people drop of pots of soup, homemade cornbread, bagels, and other goodies. Winter's coming and this struggle is not going to get any easier. Borders will fight hard because the implications for an employee victory are that the workers at the other 400 stores across the country might follow suit. Wouldn't that be great?!? Imagine the clerks at all those stores actually making a living wage! Now that is something to fight for. Please encourage everyone you know to avoid shopping at ALL Borders and Waldenbooks and Amazon.com. There are other ways for everyone to help. Boycotting is not enough. Here are a few more: 1. sign an online petition: http://BordersReadersUnited.2ya.com 2. call Borders Headquarters (734-477-1100) or your local Borders store and tell the employee who answers the phone about the strike in Ann Arbor and tell them you support the strikers. Borders is keeping the lid on the strike in other stores. Here's a store locator: http://www.bordersstores.com/locator/locator.jsp?tt=gn 3. forward this message to all your friends and colleagues; 4. leaflet at a Borders near you (you can download flyers at http://bordersreadersunited.2ya.com/ and email us at bru at riseup.net and we'll find you help!) 5. visit http://www.bordersunion.org for more information, and to sign the petition, and for other tips on how you can help out. yours for a better world, julie
-- "I am once more in the land of the patriot and the home of that proud bird which steals everything it can from smaller birds, and then sits gloating with its victorious eye fixed on a vacancy dreaming of what it will eat next." Voltairine de Cleyre, 1897 x345732