Eric Lee

A few weeks ago, union-backed campaigners managed to get a billboard erected not far from the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart, the world's largest employer. The ad called upon Wal-Mart management to recognize workers' rights -- and was promptly taken down once company officials spotted it. Unions raged that it was a violation of their constitutional right to free speech, but you sort of expect this kind of thing to happen in Bentonville, Arkansas.

You do not, however, expect it to happen in Britain. Not in 2006, and not under a Labour Government.

Yet this is precisely what happened in early July when Amicus and the T&G were compelled to withdraw radio adverts calling for a boycott of Peugeot, following the closure of the company's Ryton plant in Coventry.

That's awful, you may think, but what does this have to do with the Internet? Plenty. The new communications media constitute a grey area legally, a space where many of the old rules do not apply. Even totalitarian governments, like those in China and Cuba, have a hard time censoring the net.

Campaigns waged online do not need the permission of unelected bodies like the Radio Advertising Clearance Centre (RACC) which administers the so-called "Radio Advertising Standards Code". This Code was contracted out from government communciations watchdog Ofcom to this industry body, presumably to make the censorship of radio advertising more efficient and cost-effective. As the RACC says on its website, "for the first time in its history, radio advertising is no longer statutorily-regulated but self-regulated."

Such regulation is impossible to imagine on the Internet. And -- happy coincidence -- the Internet is increasingly where people go, especially young people, to get their news and to do their shopping. According to the BBC, unions are investing £1,000,000 in the campaign against Peugeot -- I wonder how much of it is being spent on online advertising and on the creation of dedicated, campaigning websites which have been so effect in the USA in the fight against Wal-Mart.

My guess is: not nearly enough.

Posted by Eric Lee at 11:09 AM | Permalink

A controversy erupted a few days ago involving myself and some fellow members of the IWW and as I think back on it, I think that there are some issues here which relate to the new communications technologies -- and to what it means to be a Wobbly. We are living in a new era, one in which cutting-edge technologies are quickly adopted (often a good thing) but we are sometimes slow to understand their ramifications.

Here's what happened: Somewhere buried deep in the massive IWW website was a page which included RSS feeds, among them a feed of links to entries on my personal website. For those who aren't up to speed with terms like "RSS feeds", this simply means that my personal website has a file listing the recent material I posted, and the IWW webmaster had cleverly found a way to read that list and publish it to the Wobbly site.

The reasoning was, I guess, that as I am a member of the IWW, what I write on my personal site will be of interest to fellow workers. This is generally true. This article and every other article I write for "Industrial Worker" is on my personal site, as are my columns for other publications, such as the British-based journals "Labour Research" and "International Union Rights".

I use my personal website to keep an archive of the articles I write, but I also use it -- sometimes -- to express my views on current events. This is what most people who have personal websites do.

A word about my personal political history is in order here: I grew up in the Socialist Party in the United States -- the same party that so many famous Wobblies were also proud to be members of. But the party I joined back in 1971 was a rather different one than the party of Eugene V. Debs, himself a founder of the IWW. This was a Socialist Party changed by the events of the intervening years -- a party that had grown to reject totalitarianism in all its forms, and particularly Stalinist totalitarianism which falsely called itself "socialist". The party had also grown to be very sympathetic to the state of Israel.

My own sympathy for the Jewish state grew over the years and by 1981, I had chosen to move there and live on a kibbutz. I remained there for more than 17 years before coming to London in 1998 to launch LabourStart.

Why does all this matter? Because it might explain how my views and those of many in the IWW may have diverged over the years. And this divergence is what caused the problem with the RSS feed on the IWW website.

In recent weeks, as the Middle East erupted into armed conflict again, I expressed my views on my personal website. Those views are shared by some on the left, here in Britain where I live, elsewhere in Europe, in Australia, and perhaps even in the US. But I realize that the majority of those on the left do not share my views. Fair enough -- I was happy to be invited to debate one of those groups here in London recently, and we had an amicable and comradely discussion not only of our differences, but also of the issues on which we all agree.

I am convinced that it is possible for members of the IWW to hold different views on current events. Some members, for example, might show a real sympathy for the emerging democratic trade union movement in Iraq. Others may label those unions as puppets of the occupiers. Some of us may be sympathetic toward Castro's Cuba, recognizing its achievements in the face of decades of US hostility. But others may feel that the Castro regime is simply a form of Caribbean Stalinism, and would welcome the democratization of that country. I could go on, but my point should be clear: what unites us in the IWW is our belief in a different kind of trade unionism, and in the values expressed in the preamble to the IWW constitution -- which does not mention Iraq, or Cuba, or Israel.

Some of the fellow workers were upset when they found links on the IWW website to articles I had written -- articles with which they profoundly disagreed. When I was informed about this, I wrote to the IWW suggesting that all links to my personal website be removed. I had not asked for those links to be there in the first place, and I certainly didn't want anyone to think that my views on controversial subjects were necessarily those of the IWW itself. As I wrote, "I suggest that this feed be removed at once from the IWW site and hope that this settles the matter." The feed was immediately removed. But it did not settle the matter.

One of the fellow workers wrote to me saying "I'm glad it won't be on the IWW website because that is not acceptable ... but it doesn't settle everything for me because what you are publishing is something I find very offensive and warped. You ought to consider not printing this sorta thing in the first place, regardless of where it appears. You sound like every right wing bastard on the planet ...fuck israel!"

More than a dozen fellow workers, including IWW branches around the world, were copied into this message.

An earlier message from a different IWW member -- also sent to a long list of email addresses -- referred to the effort I was making to help the Lebanese teachers unions raise money. Working together with the Education International, I am proud of our effort which has so far raised over $4,000 in support of Lebanon's teachers. What the fellow worker wrote was:

"Given this guy's expressed opinions, how do we know that he's not going to take this money and give it to Israel to buy more cluster bombs and white phosphorus?"

I don't actually know how many cluster bombs and white phosphorus one can buy with $4,000, but I'll have a look on eBay.

I can understand how a webmaster might rush to use a new technology (RSS feeds) and inadvertently create a problem by linking to articles which maybe shouldn't be linked to. Fair enough -- those links should be removed, as I suggested.

But the tone and indeed the content of the messages I just quoted -- widely circulated within the union -- cause me some concern.

The IWW should welcome a diversity of views and encourage an exchange of opinions -- and we should not stoop to the level of racist and anti-Semitic abuse.

The web gives each of us the chance to make our views known, even when they are unpopular views. The IWW should welcome such diversity and not try to suppress it.

Posted by Eric Lee at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ten years ago, I wrote an article for my web-based weekly newsletter BibiWATCH on the subject of my service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). My views have not changed in those years, and I reprint the article below.

WHY I SERVE - by Eric Lee

By the time you read these words, I will be in uniform. About two months ago, I received the notice in the mail. Report to a central bus station in one of Israel's southern cities at 9:00 in the morning on Monday, 14 October. Go home on Wednesday, 6 November. The notice came from the Israel Defense Forces, in which I have served as a reservist since 1985. Some of you reading this do not live in Israel, so I guess I should explain.
Israel has always had a people's army. Not only is the regular army based on conscription, but the vast bulk of the Israeli forces consist of reservists who are also obligated by law to serve until a certain age. Even if you come to live here when you are already an adult, well past the age of 18 when boys and girls here get drafted -- even then, you still have to serve in the reserves.

I was drafted in June 1985 and have served ever since in a combat unit. Since the outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987, my unit (and I with it) has been called to serve every year, always in the occupied territories. I have served in and around Kalkilya, Tubas, Bethlehem, Beth-el, Tekoa, Jenin, Dahariya and Gaza. I mention this because I want to address two audiences who I know are among the readers of this newsletter.

There is one group which regularly attacks my patriotism and the patriotism of those who share my views. Some (okay, most) of these critics do not actually live in Israel themselves. (Their Zionism is of the "virtual reality" type.) But they are prepared to fight down to the very last Israeli soldier to preserve Israeli sovereignty over Rachel's Tomb or some other holy site. Danny Shapiro handles these people quite nicely in his letter, in this week's letters column.

The other group is one which questions the credentials of Israeli leftists -- after all, we do serve in an occupation
army, we live on "stolen Palestinian land", etc., etc. This view has also found expression in letters to this publication.

Recently I got a letter from someone in the United States asking if the movement urging resistance to serving in the
territories, "Yesh Gvul" (There's a Limit/Border) had become inactive. The implication was that were it active, certainly leftists like myself would be part of it.

Well, "Yesh Gvul" is still around. I saw them leafleting a recent "Peace Now" rally in Tel Aviv. And they've been running newspaper ads, listing the names of soldiers who refuse to participate in the occupation.

And I should say at the outset that I respect these people. I know that they're sincere. I know that many of them are paying a price for their beliefs -- not only the price of military prison, but also the hostility of a society which looks upon them as traitors. I respect them -- but I do not share their beliefs.

Tomorrow, I will put on my uniform and serve my 24 days -- presumably in the occupied territories -- without hesitation about what I am doing. And I want to tell you why.

I believe that Israel won control of the Gaza strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Sinai peninsula in a war of self defense in June 1967. Israel, then under a government of the democratic Left, was not interested in doubling the size of its territory or bringing under its control hundreds of thousands of hostile Palestinians -- many of them refugees from the 1948 war of independence. Following its military victory, Israel held on to those territories, not annexing them (except for East Jerusalem) and most of us assumed that it would be willing to exchange them for genuine peace. Israel's acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution
242 confirmed that belief.

Under international law, Israel is obligated to do certain things in territories it temporarily occupies -- among these,
to preserve public order. It is not obligated to unilaterally withdraw from those territories. Under the Oslo accord, the Palestinian leadership explicitly recognized the right of Israeli soldiers to occupy certain parts of the West Bank until a final accord is reached. So other than a small fringe of the Israeli left, and a broader segment of the international left, no one is actually telling Israeli soldiers to disobey orders and not serve.

And what, exactly, is it that we do in those territories? I can tell you honestly that everything I have been asked to you is reasonable and I have no moral qualms about doing it. For example, I have had to sit in a jeep and accompany school children in a bus, traveling along roads where rocks and Molotov cocktails might be thrown at them. Regardless of what I think of Jewish settlements in the territories, so long as there are children there, someone has to protect them. I'm willing to do that job.

And yes, I believe that those settlements should be dismantled. I'd be delighted to help out in the redeployment of the IDF in Hebron. But I don't get asked where I want to serve or what I want to do. I do what I'm told to do -- as long as it's not illegal and not immoral. If I were ever asked to something which is clearly wrong, I would refuse. And if I saw fellow soldiers trying to do something wrong, I would stop them or report them or both.

I have never had to fire my weapon in the army, and hope that this will never happen. The only situation in which I'm allowed to do this is when my life is in danger, or the lives of others are in danger, and in which I can clearly identify the cause of the danger. That sounds reasonable to me.

I'm going in to reserve duty at an interesting time. Israeli-Palestinian talks have resumed. The US election is
little more than 3 weeks away. Israeli politics is rife with talk of a national unity government. I wish I could stay here, at my post, and produce BibiWATCH each week during what promises to be an exciting period.

I'll be back on 6 November, and there will be a special edition of BibiWATCH online the following day. Meanwhile, keep sending in those cards and letters. And wish me luck.

Posted by Eric Lee at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)