File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9708, message 145


Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 20:19:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris <red-AT-iww.org>
Subject: AUT: Radio Free IWW! (fwd)


this is a creative follow-up to the IWW organizing at the JobCorps
(workfare) "school" (managed by a private prison corporation) in
Pennsylvania, USA...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 05:09:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexis Buss <alexis-AT-netaxs.com>
Subject: Radio Free IWW!

Good morning fellow workers - 

Just got back from broadcasting in to the Keystone Job Corps Center.  It
was terrific!  The kind folks at Radio Mutiny, WPPR (West Philly Pirate
Radio), came together with IWW to help us fan the flames of discontent
inside of Keystone.  

Our mobile transmitter was packed up into a van, and we headed out
to Drums, PA from West Philly.  Our broadcast started around 9:45 pm.  We
called in to the dorms at Keystone (had arranged this earlier) and several
people on the inside had smuggled in fliers which they quickly
distributed.  Pretty soon, everybody on the Center had their ear to the
radio listening to our broadcast which included us reading from the banned
issues of the local paper "The Standard-Speaker", testimony from a friend
of a young woman almost killed by the infirmary staff, a story from
Solidarity Forever, the preamble to the constitution, a bit from the Dario
Fo play Mistero Buffo, and an excerpt from Matt Wilson's termination
hearing.  Plus lots of music: Last Poets, Rage Against the Macine, Utah
Phillips, Public Enemy, Meat Beat Manifesto, Cypress Hill, Rhythym
Activism, Funkadelic, Nine Inch Nails.  

So we get about halfway into our broadcast (had 100 minutes of tape -
all our battery can handle) and in pull the cops.  Job Corps had sent
around their security (Keystone Cops?!?) to find us - we were in our usual
spot at the only pay phone in Drums, PA and then called in a complaint,
apparently posing as the pizza place in the strip mall we were outside of.
The cops took a look at our rig and asked us if it was a bomb.  They were
worried becuase we were right outside of a post office (geez, if I wanted
to take a post office - why the hell waste my time on Drums' which
probably has all of 8 letters inside?).  Anyway, after some dithering
around, we told them what it was and they didn't really know what to do
with us.  They had no jurisdiciton and weren't really sure if it was
illegal anyway.  Sometime during all of this, a reporter from the Standard
Speaker showed up and I did a quick interview.  The cops talked to the
pizza place, the proprietors of which had no problme with us being there
(this is the regular IWW hangout while we wait for our people to be
terminated, harrassed, or sometimes released into our care.)  So, the cops
asked us to leave once it closed.  They recommended that after pizza place
closed that we move to the parking lot of a nearby Dunkin' Donuts
(yes, they really did.)  When they found out it was the IWW, they said,
"Oh!  IWW - why didn't you just say so!" because we've gained a little
reputation out there - I dealt with the one cop before when Matt & Joe
first got terminated.  So, IWW is notorious in Drums, PA.

We took it mobile when the pizza place closed and circled the Keystone
Center a few times.  The Keystone Coppers followed us around for most of
that stint.  Don't know what they hoped to accomplish by that.

The people on the inside were very happy to hear our broadcast.   A few
of the residential advisors called up my number to wish us well and tell
us how energized it made everyone feel. We hope to go back up sometime
after Labor Day.  Tommorrow is Parent's Visitation Day and the Residential
Advisors are pulling a job action about Keystone's unwillingness to
negotiate a contract with them in good faith (they just voted to join SEIU
a few months ago).  

I'll bring a copy of the tape of the broadcast to GA.

In solidarity,
Alexis








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