Anarcho-Syndicalism and A Living Wage

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

“To each according to their needs.”

WHAT IS A “LIVING WAGE”? It is a minimum quality of life which is due to all people. LW = FOOD + CLOTHING + SHELTER + HEALTH + TRANSPORTATION. It is what you need to get to work/school and be productive. It is something you need for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The workers organizations fight for this as a basic “human right” for all people (workers, families, retirees, etc.). It is a measure of the humanity of a social system.

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and Housing

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

In the future land use planning must be done by the community with the immediate and long term needs of the community in mind. Worker self-management will direct the functions of workplaces, but so-called “property rights” will no longer be transferrable. Community self-management will be by workers in the community who will have to balance the need for housing with the social economic needs of workplaces and residents in the community [production/distribution/exchange of resources and products for use/needs, not profit]. A volunteer workers housing committee in the workplace will gather housing need information from workers. In the community, a volunteer housing working group will survey housing needs and potential existing housing resources. Both will include persons with building safety expertise [structure safety (fire, vermin, quake), electricity, plumbing, etc.]. We want to enable workers and their families to safely live in the communities where they work. Slumlords should be identified and have their wealth and resources expropriated to help make their former residential properties more safe and habitable.

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and Community Building

Posted on January 14, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

(Building the Free Commune)

By Scott R.

Whether you live in a City, town, or country, working people deserve fair compensation for their labor. Every person who looks for work should be able to find it. Every worker and student should be entitled to food, housing and good health. It is possible for no one to have to live in poverty, be exploited, or be discriminated against.

People prosper best in a society with political AND economic freedom. This means worker self-management in the workplace and direct democracy [self-management] in the community.

Working class communities today are a form of colonialism where abscentee capitalist landlords own everything and use the occupation forces of their cops [and sometimes the military], courts and jails to terrorize people into submission while they squeeze as much money out of people as possible through taxes, rents, redlining [discrimination, underserving, overpricing], etc..

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The Barcelona Mass Rent Strike of 1931

Posted on September 2, 2005, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

by Tom Wetzel

This is the story of one of the major rent strikes of the 20th century.

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The Capitalist City or the Self-managed City

Posted on July 19, 2004, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

by Tom Wetzel

from Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World, edited by David Solnit (City Lights Press, 2004).

Patterns of capital flows have a visible effect on working class communities in the United States. Some communities see closed plants, abandoned stores, boarded-up dwellings, scarce jobs. Such are signs of disinvestment. Capital has moved to some other site in the global production line.

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