Dérive

  (the boss needs you, you don't need him) “The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive… compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.” - Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 1967.  "On Wednesday the undertakers went on strike. Now is not the time to die."  - Eyewitness to mass strike on May 14, 1968. "The crisis was infinitely more serious and profound...it was not my position that was in question, it was general de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic, and, to a considerable extent, Republican rule itself." - Prime minister Georges Popidou, May 25, 1968. "May ’68 was the biggest mass upheaval in the history of France and the concurrent wildcat general strike was the most important strike in the history of the European workers movement since World War Two. Nowhere else was the rejection of the new model of consumerist life more profound, or...

On Friday, 40,000 AT&T workers in phone sales (mobility) and landline and cable installation went on strike across 36 states. In California and Nevada, workers (unionized with the CWA) have been on the job without a contract for over a year. The company's CEO, Randal Stephenson, was recently given a raise and now makes over $12,000 an hour. Meanwhile, mobility workers are being offered a 40 cent wage increase that means nothing in the face of increasing living costs, especially in the Bay Area. In addition, the company wants to relocated call center jobs to Mexico, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, increase the amount workers pay for health insurance, cut sick time, and increase a highly punitive points based penalty system in which workers would face disciplinary actions after using a fourth sick days.  Journalist David Bacon reports that "AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the country with $164 billion in sales and 135 million wireles...