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Vous êtes sur le site officiel des Travailleurs Industriels du Monde. Ici vous trouverez à peu près tout ce dont vous avez besoin pour rejoindre l'IWW et commencer à organiser vos lieux de travail et construire un grand syndicat au sein de votre communauté. La plupart des informations contenues ici traitent des Etats-unis et du Canada, mais nous avons aussi des liens vers d.autres sites IWW gérés ailleurs.

L'IWW est une organisation syndicale pour tous les travailleurs, un syndicat dédié à l'organisation des travailleurs sur leur lieu de travail, dans leurs industries et leurs communautés. Les membres des IWW organisent les travailleurs pour obtenir de meilleures conditions aujourd.hui et construisent pour demain un monde économique démocratique. Nous voulons que nos entreprises fonctionnent au profit des ouvriers et des communautés plutôt que pour une poignée de patrons et leur exécutif.

Nous sommes les Travailleurs Industriels du Monde parce que nous nous organisons industriellement. Ceci signifie que nous organisons tous les travailleurs produisant les mêmes biens ou fournissant les mêmes services dans un syndicat, plutôt que de les diviser par secteurs d.activité, ainsi nous pouvons mettre en commun notre force et faire triompher nos revendications ensemble. Depuis que l'IWW a été fondé en 1905, nous avons apporté des contributions significatives aux combats des travailleurs à travers le monde et nous sommes fiers de notre tradition visant à nous organiser indépendamment de critères sexuels, ethniques et raciaux bien avant que de telles méthodes soient courantes.

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I'm at Cloud Camp Vancouver today. It's at the Discovery Parks Vancouver venue where we had Barcamp Vancouver 2009. The Twitter hashtag is #cloudcamp #vancouver. I'll be doing updates throughout the day.

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From the UFT press release:

Educators seek more collaborative work environment and voice in school policy

Teachers and staff at the Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School in the South Bronx announced on March 12 their intention to join the UFT.

The entire teaching staff, along with other staff members at the school, have signed union authorization cards.

In a letter given to the school’s principal, the teachers’ organizing committee called for a more formal and collective voice in the school community to “ensure the quality of our students’ education.”

The UFT filed a formal petition today with the school’s board of trustees, and notified the state’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) that Bronx Academy of Promise teachers are seeking union recognition. If the school’s board does not recognize the union as the bargaining representative within 30 days, the UFT can ask PERB to certify the bargaining unit on the basis of the authorization cards.

“These teachers want the best for their students. They are dedicated to their school and creating the best learning environment that they possibly can. We are proud to welcome them into our union,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew.

“This is about job security, but it is also about making sure the school moves in the right direction,” said teacher Reagan Fletcher. “We are with our kids eight hours a day and deserve a voice in the policy decisions that affect them. Ultimately, this will benefit our children.”

“This will let us fulfill the mission of our school: to give the students the best possible school and the education they deserve,” said teacher Melissa Garcia.

The school, located at 1166 River Avenue in the Bronx, has been in operation since the fall of 2008, and currently serves approximately 240 students in kindergarten through 4th grade. The school employs 17 teachers, four teaching assistants, a social worker and several other staff members.

The UFT represents educators at ten other charter schools in New York City and co-operates a school in collaboration with Green Dot, a successful and labor-friendly charter school operator based in Los Angeles.

Additionally, in January, educators at the NYC Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries (AECI) in Queens voted overwhelmingly to unionize. On January 13, the AECI staff filed a formal petition with PERB seeking union recognition; a pre-hearing conference with both parties and PERB is scheduled for April 7th at PERB’s office in Downtown Brooklyn.

The Drupal.org redesign continues to progress. This is great news and a morale boost for everyone involved.

Since our front page post on February 3...

• Over 20 enthusiastic new volunteers have come forward to lend their expertise.
• Several experienced professional Drupal project managers have been added to the project management team
• We have produced two new theming documentation. This will help the theme implementation teams standardize their implementations. See details further on.
• Contributors can sign into the new *.staging.drupal.org subsites (groups, association, api, localize, etc.) in additional to the main site now.
• We continue to need expert resources with knowledge of drupal.org data sources to assist with custom Solr development
• Trellon has checked in an alpha dashboard and we now have a beta version of the main Download and Extend page.

Once the major blockers are cleared, we will push forward with engaging the MVP implementation volunteers that signed up last year.

Our next sprint will be on Friday, March 19th from 8am PST/4pm GMT to 12pm PST, 8PM GMT. We aim to focus on theming, and completing the search generated blocks. The sprint will be held on IRC in #drupal-infrastructure.

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I have been dismayed at the willingness to let the Wall Street executives off the hook--allowing them to walk free, continue to collect bonuses and salaries and even give them jobs in government after they conducted what was perhaps the biggest fraud in financial history. We cannot let them escape justice. And, based on the evidence released today, we need to start with Lehman Brothers, and in particular Richard Fuld, the former CEO.

  Here is what an independent bank examiner concludes:

But the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, also for the first time laid out what the report characterized as "materially misleading" accounting gimmicks that Lehman used to mask the perilous state of its finances. The bank’s bankruptcy, the largest in American history, shook the financial world. Fears that other banks might topple in a cascade of failures eventually led Washington to arrange a sweeping rescue for the nation’s financial system.

According to the report, Lehman used what amounted to financial engineering to temporarily shuffle $50 billion off its books in the months before its collapse in September 2008 to conceal its dependence on leverage, or borrowed money. Senior Lehman executives, as well as the bank’s accountants at Ernst & Young, were aware of the moves, according to Mr. Valukas, a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, who filed the report in connection with Lehman’s bankruptcy case.

Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman’s former chief executive, certified the misleading accounts, the report said.

"Unbeknownst to the investing public, rating agencies, government regulators, and Lehman’s board of directors, Lehman reverse engineered the firm’s net leverage ratio for public consumption," Mr. Valukas wrote.

Mr. Fuld was "at least grossly negligent," the report states. Henry M. Paulson Jr., who was then the Treasury secretary, warned Mr. Fuld that Lehman might fail unless it stabilized its finances or found a buyer.

Lehman executives engaged in what the report characterized as "actionable balance sheet manipulation," in addition to "nonculpable errors of business judgment." [emphasis added]

  The report does not make any judgment whether Fuld and other executives committed felonies or other violations of securities' law. But, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Manhattan and Brooklyn U.S. attorney's offices are investigating, among other things, whether former Lehman executives misled investors about the firm's financial picture before it filed for bankruptcy protection, and whether Lehman improperly valued its real-estate assets, people familiar with the matter have said.

  With the caveat that I am not a securities law expert, it is hard not to read the excerpts from the report and come away believing that there is not enough evidence for an indictment and a trial before a jury.

  The millions of people who lost their life savings deserve a trial of the people who participated in this fraud.

  The millions of people who lost their jobs because of the greed and fraud that caused the economic crisis deserve a trial of those responsible.

  Before our very eyes, in Washington, reform of the financial system is being sliced and diced. We cannot let this happen. Too many Democrats continue to accept huge amounts of legalized corruption from the very people who participated in the Wall Street casino game. We have to stop this. Now.

  Until the system is reformed (short of complete public financing of campaigns), Democrats must stop taking money from Wall Street, the banks and rest of the financial interests who are buying votes to stop significant, meaningful reform. They are trying to even scuttle the very modest bank tax proposed by the president, not to mention a more significant financial transactions tax.

  We got into this mess, in part, because our political system oiled the way for a predictably dangerous de-regulation of the industry. We can't let this happen again.

   The question must be asked as well: what did Tim Geithner know about this fraud? Naked Capitalism has this demand:

We need to demand an immediate release of the e-mails, phone records, and meeting notes from the NY Fed and key Lehman principals regarding the NY Fed’s review of Lehman’s solvency. If, as things appear now, Lehman was allowed by the Fed’s inaction to remain in business, when the Fed should have insisted on a wind-down (and the failed Barclay’s said this was not infeasible: even an orderly bankruptcy would have been preferrable, as Harvey Miller, who handled the Lehman BK filing has made clear; a good bank/bad bank structure, with a Fed backstop of the bad bank, would have been an option if the Fed’s justification for inaction was systemic risk), the NY Fed at a minimum helped perpetuate a fraud on investors and counterparties.

In December, the MTA announced plans to cut student MetroCards as part of a package of budget cuts, a move strongly opposed by the UFT. Without the free passes, a half million New York City school children will be left to finance their own way to school.

On March 17, students from the Urban Youth Collaborative and Students for Transportation Justice will meet with the chairman of the MTA, Jay Walder, to urge him to work with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to save their MetroCards.

The Working Families Party has put together a “teachers and parents petition” that the students will take along to the meeting. They want to walk in with thousands of teachers and parents at their back, to make clear to the MTA — and the media — how important free student MetroCards really are.

Please take a minute to sign this online petition and share it with other teachers, parents or family members of students who might be interested.

www.savestudentmetrocards.org

The petition says:

“We are parents, teachers, and family members awed by the enthusiasm of NYC students who are going all out to save their school MetroCards. These students shouldn’t pay for Albany, the City and the MTA’s budget troubles. We support them in their fight. Please save Student MetroCards.”

The students’ goal is to gather 5,000 signatures before the March 17 meeting. They have been fighting for months to pressure leaders from the MTA, City Hall and Albany to save their MetroCards, and it’s time to show that teachers and parents have a huge stake in this too.

Sign the petition telling the MTA, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to save student MetroCards:

www.savestudentmetrocards.org

   Conventional wisdom--along with a great dose of greed and blind faith in a failed economic model--caused the immediate economic crisis we are still deeply mired in. Every day, brings another does of conventional wisdom. Here is one from The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. household wealth fell by $14 trillion during the recession, sapping confidence and holding back consumer spending. Now, it is staging a comeback...

Household net worth plummeted during the recession thanks to sharp declines in real estate and financial assets such as stocks, falling to a low of $48.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2009.

The massive decline knocked out a key support for consumer spending at a time when labor market and credit conditions were worsening rapidly. Monthly consumer spending fell as much as 2% last May compared with the prior year—the worst reading of the recession—after posting gains of more than 7% during the boom.

   The conventional wisdom will look at any rise in the stock market and/or any signs of life in the housing market as a sign things are improving. But, that is a conventional wisdom at the immediate reality and is ignorant of a 30-year crisis. Until we have an honest debate in the country--which we are not having--about the roots of the three-decade long slide in wages, we will only kick down the road--again--a reckoning with a failed economic model.

   We can't let that happen.

Social media tools have helped in following crisis (Iran) in the follow-up to crisis (Haiti earthquake), this article shows how to use social media before a crisis/disaster

Social media tools making it easy to find your way around SXSW

Social media as an real alternative news source

   In February 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King sent this to 11 jailed protestors:

I HAVE JUST LEARNED OF YOUR COURAGEOUS WILLINGNESS TO GO TO JAIL INSTEAD

I HAVE JUST LEARNED OF YOUR COURAGEOUS WILLINGNESS TO GO TO JAIL INSTEAD

OF PAYING FINES FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS PROTEST AGAINST SEGREGATED

EATING FACILITIES. THROUGH THIS DECISION YOU HAVE AGAIN PROVEN THAT THERE IS NOTHING MORE MAJESTIC AND SUBLIME THAN THE DETERMINED COURAGE OF INDIVIDUALS WILLING TO SUFFER AND SACRIFICE FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. YOU HAVE DISCOVERED ANEW THE MEANING OF THE CROSS, AND AS CHRIST DIED TO MAKE MEN HOLY, YOU ARE SUFFERING TO MAKE MEN FREE. AS YOU SUFFER THE INCONVENIENCE OF REMAINING IN JAIL, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT UNEARNED SUFFERING IS REDEMPTIVE. GOING TO JAIL FOR A RIGHTEOUS

CAUSE IS A BADGE OF HONOR AND A SYMBOL OF DIGNITY. I ASSURE YOU

THAT YOUR VALIANT WITNESS IS ONE OF THE GLOWING EPICS OF OUR TIME AND YOU ARE BRINGING ALL OF AMERICA NEARER THE THRESHHOLD O F T H E WORLD’S BRIGHT TOMORROWS.

   If he was alive today, he would have been with the other 5,000 people at the rally yesterday in D.C. to protest a meeting of the CEOs of the insurance industry who were gathered at the posh Ritz Carlton (no harm to yours truly was done):

   In February 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King sent this to 11 jailed protestors:

I HAVE JUST LEARNED OF YOUR COURAGEOUS WILLINGNESS TO GO TO JAIL INSTEAD

I HAVE JUST LEARNED OF YOUR COURAGEOUS WILLINGNESS TO GO TO JAIL INSTEAD

OF PAYING FINES FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS PROTEST AGAINST SEGREGATED

EATING FACILITIES. THROUGH THIS DECISION YOU HAVE AGAIN PROVEN THAT THERE IS NOTHING MORE MAJESTIC AND SUBLIME THAN THE DETERMINED COURAGE OF INDIVIDUALS WILLING TO SUFFER AND SACRIFICE FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. YOU HAVE DISCOVERED ANEW THE MEANING OF THE CROSS, AND AS CHRIST DIED TO MAKE MEN HOLY, YOU ARE SUFFERING TO MAKE MEN FREE. AS YOU SUFFER THE INCONVENIENCE OF REMAINING IN JAIL, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT UNEARNED SUFFERING IS REDEMPTIVE. GOING TO JAIL FOR A RIGHTEOUS

CAUSE IS A BADGE OF HONOR AND A SYMBOL OF DIGNITY. I ASSURE YOU

THAT YOUR VALIANT WITNESS IS ONE OF THE GLOWING EPICS OF OUR TIME AND YOU ARE BRINGING ALL OF AMERICA NEARER THE THRESHHOLD O F T H E WORLD’S BRIGHT TOMORROWS.

   If he was alive today, he would have been with the other 5,000 people at the rally yesterday in D.C. to protest a meeting of the CEOs of the insurance industry who were gathered at the posh Ritz Carlton (no harm to yours truly was done):

Presents a few possibilities to use foursquare for advocacy

[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a first-year 10th-grade science teacher in a school in Brooklyn. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]

It is a frequent occurrence in many 10th-grade classrooms: A lesson is underway, when suddenly, from the back of the room, comes the exclamation that no teacher wants to hear: “Miss, your class is so boring!”

Midway through my first year of teaching, I’ve been really getting into improving as a teacher. I’m excited about trying out new techniques and receiving criticism on my teaching. I have learned to detach myself much more from the day-to-day incidents and distractions in the classroom. However, no teacher likes to be told his class is boring, especially not one who is consciously trying to be the best teacher possible. As a first-year teacher, I know I could be more engaging at times, but hey, at least I’m giving it my all!

Since the beginning of the school year, I have dealt handily with comments about my breath, my hair and even my handwriting, never batting an eyelash. But for some reason, the boredom comments always throw me — either into rage or despair.

Fortunately, in my weekly “Fellow Blast,” I found the following advice from another Teaching Fellow:

“I’ve learned not to take it personally when I hear my students say, “This is so boring!” Instead, I try to figure out why the student is reporting feeling bored.

Often, “this is boring” means, “I am so confused.” It also may mean, “I need some attention right now. “ Instead of feeling offended, I’ve learned to realize that the student declaring boredom is really saying that she needs some help. If the student were uninterested, she wouldn’t have called attention to herself and to the lesson.

If boredom isn’t truly the problem, then we shouldn’t treat it as such. I direct the student to the task at hand, and explain the teaching point in another way. Sometimes I model part of the task for the student, guide her through the next portion of the task, then say, “Great, you’re ready to do the rest yourself.” The student who previously declared boredom will often be more likely to share at the end of the lesson, because she has gained confidence.”

Using this as fodder to better my own practices, I let a comment on how boring my class was roll off my back. I did not confront the student, as I often had in the past. However, the following day, I found the student during lunch and asked her to sit with me for a while. We chatted a bit and I brought up her comment from the previous day. Immediately, she admitted that she did not understand the material, and was further frustrated because she had encountered this material before. She agreed that she should come for extra help and was more engaged in class today, although I still have not totally won her over.

But how to approach students also depends on each one’s unique personality. Another student of mine is constantly complaining about my class, especially the current topic of geology. He is a funny kid, with a witty sense of humor, so I chose to make use of this trait. I started off our conversation, mock crying, “You really hurt my feelings yesterday.” Continuing in this sarcastic manner, we discussed how he loves astronomy, and I was quick to point out that studying other planets’ composition was just like studying rocks here on Earth and that we can better understand other planets by better understanding our own planet. My AP joined in and together we cornered him, concluding that, in fact, he loves rocks!

Miraculously, the next day he participated non-stop, while also making off-hand comments about how he does not like rocks. It was clear that my rapport with him had improved and he was feeling less bored in class. He even came up at the end of the period to apologize to me for making too many jokes in class. I can’t wait to see how he is during the astronomy unit!

I am slowly learning that, yes, I must make the classroom engaging, but I also have to accept that not all students are going to understand, regardless of how exciting the presentation. And when students don’t understand, they react in different ways. They may shut down, or they may express their frustration by lashing out at those around them. Rather than getting offended, I have to use these clues to reach out to those students and help them connect with the material. They could feel the excitement of science, if only they could understand the basics I’m trying to teach them.

By KEANE BHATT

For decades, Noam Chomsky has been an analyst and activist working in support of the Haitian people. In addition to his revolutionary linguistics career at MIT, he has written, lectured and protested against injustice for 40 years. He is co-author, along with Paul Farmer and Amy Goodman of Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup. His analysis "The Tragedy of Haiti" from his 1993 book Year 501: The Conquest Continues is available for free online. This interview was conducted in late February 2010 by phone and email. The interviewer thanks Peter Hallward for his kind assistance.

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I'm kicking myself because I've been taking far too narrow an interpretation of "an open source approach". I've been focused on getting people to release data. That's the data analogue of tossing code over the wall, and we know it takes more than a tarball on an FTP server to get the benefits of open source. The same is true of data.

Open source discourages laziness (because everyone can see the corners you've cut), it can get bugs fixed or at least identified much faster (many eyes), it promotes collaboration, and it's a great training ground for skills development. I see no reason why open data shouldn't bring the same opportunities to data projects.

And a lot of data projects need these things.

via radar.oreilly.com

I've been saying for a while that open data is a sort of new frontier. Open source is relatively wide spread and there is a general low hum of understanding about it in many places. For me, I sum it up by saying to people that they need to understand that their "code is worthless".

The next step is coming to understand about open data, and why we should care. Why we should convince people that their "data is worthless".

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As you know, people from all over the world use Delicious. Although our interface is still English-only (thinking about new languages for the roadmap but nothing concrete yet), you’ll see that our bookmarks, tags and comments appear in many different languages.

Today, we have a brief note to our Australian users that sign into Delicious with a Yahoo! account.

You guys have been selected for a dry-run of the initial integration of Delicious and Yahoo! Messenger. If you move your mouse cursor over any link in your conversation window you’ll see the Delicious logo appear. Click that and we’ll open a ‘Save’ window for you.

Now you can easily save links to review later without interrupting your instant message conversations. Yah!

What about the rest of us? Once we gather some data, have a few cups of coffee, cram in some Foosball action and ensure we have enough machines to handle the traffic, we’ll enable the feature for other English versions of Yahoo! Messenger.

What else are we working on? We can’t tell you, it’s a secret. :p