Join the Las Vegas IWW at a May Day Solidarity Rally for Salvador Zamora

Salvador Zamora has been conducting a hunger strike across the street from the federal courthouse in Las Vegas for 21 days (as of 4-30) demanding genuine immigration reform. To honor what he is doing and because it is the spirit of May Day, the true worker's holiday, I will be joining him in solidarity to support and help bring attention to his cause and would like to invite others to join me.

Find out more info either on FaceBook here: May Day Solidarity Rally event or on our Meetup group here: Las Vegas Anarchy Meetup May Day Solidarity Rally.

Unfortunately, this is very short notice due to the fact that I didn't even know he was doing this until I happened to walk past and see him. While he has received some coverage from the local Spanish language media, none of the other local media has even mentioned it at all. Personally, I'm pretty hard pressed to understand how a guy going without food for over three weeks (and counting) isn't newsworthy, regardless of the reasons.

Although it isn't actually required to participate in the rally, I will be fasting for 24 hours beginning at midnight once May Day officially starts to show my support for his own sacrifice.

There is no "official" start time, although I'll be going down there in the morning and spending the day with Salvador. You are welcome to come at whatever time is convenient for you.

There will also be an official, albeit really sanitized and docile, May Day parade hosted by local unions and politicians beginning around 4 o'clock at the federal courthouse that you may or may not want to take part in. If so, you could just show up a bit early to show Salvador some support.


I hope to see you there.

Join the Las Vegas IWW for the February Monthly Meeting

The Las Vegas Industrial Workers of the World will be holding our first official monthly meeting on Saturday, February 2nd at 4pm. We will be discussing and finalizing our official bylaws (view text file here), and will also be electing a treasurer, delegates, and other necessary positions for our branch to be certified as an official GMB. In addition, we will decide how often to formally meet, on what days, how long meeting should last and other related issues.
This meeting is an open meeting and can be attended by the general public. Prospective members and those wishing to find out more about the IWW are welcome to attend, but will not be able to participate directly in any decisions or votes that might take place.
What is the IWW?:
The IWW is a member-run union for all workers, a union dedicated to organizing on the job, in our industries and in our communities. IWW members are organizing to win better conditions today and build a world with economic democracy tomorrow. We want our workplaces run for the benefit of workers and communities rather than for a handful of bosses and executives.
We are the Industrial Workers of the World because we organize industrially.
This means we organize all workers producing the same goods or providing the same services into one union, rather than dividing workers by skill or trade, so we can pool our strength to win our demands together. Since the IWW was founded in 1905, we have made significant contributions to the labor struggles around the world and have a proud tradition of organizing across gender, ethnic and racial lines long before such organizing was popular.
For more info visit: IWW.org

May Day 2012 Afterthoughts

Personally, I'm rather glad that I and several other members of the local Occupy movement were given the opportunity to become involved with the planning of the May Day march this year. While I've been involved tangentially in the  past, this is  the first time that I've taken part in the actual planning and execution of the march from beginning to end. It was a lot of work and at times stressful, but the end result was well worth it.

As an Anarchist and someone who has been intimately involved in the fight for labor rights, May Day is a very important holiday for me in its own right. However, anyone that is genuinely interested in the professed ideals of the Occupy movements is or should become aware of the ways in which racism, homophobia, sexism, and nationalism are used to divide and set us against each other and to keep us fighting our fellow workers, with whom we actually have the most in common with, instead of uniting as the singular people that we truly are to eliminate abuses throughout the workplace and beyond.

Immigration laws and the police powers that the scare tactics associated with them bring, absolutely are an injury to all, even if the initial and most visible injury is perpetrated against a small minority. The undocumented worker that is blackmailed into accepting inferior pay and working conditions is also used as a threat against non-immigrant workers who dare to ask for better working conditions and pay for themselves. It's a vicious cycle that ultimately benefits no-one excepts the bosses.

Similarly, the cops in riot gear that we all witnessed tearing down Occupation tents, arresting, and abusing peaceful protesters were funded by budgets inflated through border controls and drug war justifications that primarily target minority communities with devastating effect. The creeping militarization of police starts at the borders, but it doesn't end there. Anyone that believes in the right to protest for basic human rights and common dignity needs to be in the fight, even if they haven't personally been affected by it yet.

May Day 2012 was a great success and I feel like Occupy Las Vegas brought several new and fun wrinkles to the march without distracting from the larger issues and goals of previous years. I hope that the other participants agree with that assessment and look forward to any other opportunities that might come along in which it would be appropriate for Occupiers to collaborate with UCIR, MEChA de UNLV, and the other groups/individuals who organized this important event.

May Day 2012 – A Declaration of Solidarity from Occupy Oklahoma

(courtesy of Zakk Flash and the General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma)

WHEREAS, May 1st is officially recognized worldwide as International Workers' Day, a holiday originating in response to the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where workers were fighting for the eight hour workday;

WHEREAS, the people of the world have risen against economic inequality, social domination, financial exploitation, government corruption, and iron-fisted authoritarianism in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Greece, and elsewhere;

WHEREAS, this working class movement has observed unchecked corporate power redefining the natural world as a body of resources to be exploited to serve their purposes and interests;

WHEREAS, the physical and economic assault of governments worldwide upon their peoples constitutes an attack on the principles of self-determination and democracy;

WHEREAS, corporate interests and the politicians they control continue to spread aggression in Washington DC, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and multitudinous countries of the world;

WHEREAS, our solidarity with the workers of the world constitutes our inalienable right to freedom of association;

WHEREAS, a call is growing for an international mass action to honor the struggles and sacrifices of working peoples around the world;


WHEREAS, isolated efforts at reform have failed to stem the growing tide of corporate power and the harm it causes to the working class;

WHEREAS, we recognize in the General Strike a powerful tool in the battle for democracy, a furtherance of social and economic conditions, and the provisions of education and healthcare;


THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma endorses the General Strike of May Day 2012, including work stoppages, street demonstrations, sick-outs, and other solidarity actions;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma urges its constituent members to stand in solidarity in a “Day without Workers,” supporting a boycott of shopping, work, and school-related activities as part of May Day observances.


This resolution has been endorsed by:

The General Assembly of Occupy Oklahoma
Occupy Norman (University of Oklahoma)
Occupy Shawnee (Oklahoma)
The Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA)
CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective: Stillwater Cell
Earth Rebirth
The Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe (A-Cafe)

N©!2012

The author, Zakk Flash,  humbly puts this missive and all its contents at the disposal of those who, in good faith, might read, circulate, plagiarize, revise, and otherwise make use of them in the course of making the world a better place.

Possession, reproduction, transmission, excerpting, introduction as evidence in court and all other applications by any corporation, government body, security organization, or similar party of evil intent are strictly prohibited and punishable under natural law.