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Title: At War With Calendula
Author: Peter Little
Date: May 29, 2005
Language: en
Topics: Industrial Workers of the World, workplace struggles, Bring the Ruckus
Source: Retrieved on March 14, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20190314161026/http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/25
Notes: Peter Little is an organizer with Bring the Ruckus and the IWW.

Peter Little

At War With Calendula

A month ago a call came into the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

Hall in Portland. The front-end staff of a small, recently opened

restaurant had struck the week before. The owner’s immediate response

was to fire all four of the strikers. Although this was the IWW’s first

contact with these workers, the union decided to support these workers

in negotiating a settlement to the strike.

The negotiating committee of four workers and union representatives

arrived at the restaurant at 9:15pm on a Sunday, approaching the owner

on the sidewalk as he returned from taking an order on the patio.

Catching his attention, they waited until he was through taking his

order, and notified him that the IWW would now be representing the fired

workers. When the union representatives requested a meeting be set up to

discuss resolving the strike, the owner replied, “You are trespassing.

If you don’t leave my property right now, I’m calling the police.”

Although this response may seem typical, this was not your typical

employer.

Revolutionary adventures in petit-bourgeois capitalism

For those who are not aware of him already, Craig Rosebraugh has made

himself into a household name in the Pacific Northwest. About the same

time the Portland Police department broke his arm during a rally to free

political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, Craig was the press spokesman for

the Animal Liberation Front-Earth Liberation Front. For years, his house

was regularly raided and openly surveilled by the FBI, and he was

eventually subpoenaed, first to a federal grand jury in Portland, and

later to testify before Congress, both times regarding ‘ecoterrorism.’ A

number of local organizers, (including myselfa member of the IWW

assisting the striking restaurant workers) supported Craig, organizing a

local support committee to combat the grand jury. Craig took a

principled, political stand in the face of the attacks against him from

the state, refusing to testify before the grand jury, and openly

defending actions against property in front of Congress. Although always

controversial both personally and politically, his principled stance won

him the respect of many local revolutionaries, even if there were

numerous disagreements with his understanding of revolutionary politics.

Most recently, Craig himself decided to launch a small capitalist

venture to continue to fund his ‘revolutionary’ projects. His upscale

vegan restaurant in SE Portland was billed as Portland’s progressive

eatery, with the menus and ads touting organic food, recycling, and well

treated workers as the base of the business. The workers who appeared at

the IWW Hall soon after the strike told another story, however. They had

applied at Calendula excited at the idea of helping to promote healthy,

vegan food. After working for eight months to build the business, they

repeatedly found the promises made upon employment primarily health care

and a respectful work environment—unfulfilled. After two rounds of wage

cuts left them back at minimum wage, the workers decided to act. The

striking workers made it clear that their primary issue was not wages,

but the lack of respect for the workers within the restaurant.

Abigail, was one of the striking waitresses. She posted this to

Portland’s Indymedia site in response to attacks from the owner and by

other Rosebraugh supporters,”There is no doubt that Craig worked hard,

he did, however it often felt like he was working against our collective

flow. His ego often blocked communication, when our lead server voiced

our collective concerns he pronounced that if we were not happy then we

should all leave, and she was sent home on one of our busiest nights. We

had to cover for his egotistical decisions always. He made rash

decisions like laying off our awesome busser, while lowering our wages

and changing the menu. So that we were working harder, with lower

morale, with less wages. Instead of lowering prices and seeing results

first.”

Jimmy Ray, another striker, responded to criticisms of the strikers on

Indymedia in this way, “As an employee on strike from Calendula, I would

first like to state that this entire debate is not about money. In

Craig’s advertisement he rants on about the mad cash we were making at

his floundering business. The issue at hand is not about Craig lowering

our wages, but is about respect and a concerted desire to retain our

dignity. Furthermore, the issue could have been quickly resolved had

Craig agreed to listen to our grievances. Instead, he chose to treat us

with disrespect, accusing us of trespassing and calling the police when

we peacefully approached him to negotiate. In the long run, this has

forced him to take out expensive full-page ads and hire high profile

lawyers to speak on his behalf. Ironically enough, had Rosebraugh simply

listened to us and responded tactfully and with respect, his money could

have been saved. Additionally, after free meals and beverages were

eliminated, the floor manager attempted to discuss the staff’s

grievances with Rosebraugh, only to be sent home ‘for having a bad

attitude’ on the night of our extremely busy grand re-opening party.

That set precedence for the rest of us, and we became fearful of

discussing our concerns with Rosebraugh. Indeed, when I did attempt to

discuss my own issues with Craig (being passed up for a promotion which

had been promised to me), he accused me of having a bad attitude and

insisted that, unless it was ‘in my heart’ to work for him, we’d

separate. If Rosebraugh believes these conditions constitute a

“respectful work environment,” he has a very skewed definition of the

term.”

Recognizing that Craig was a favorite target of the boss’ press,

right-wing groupings, and the state itself, the IWW approached the

strike at Craig’s restaurant carefully. The union decided to withhold

publicizing the struggle, denying press interviews and attempting to

persuade the owner to negotiate through contact with various members of

the local left, rather than using the more common approaches of pickets,

media, and bad publicity—thus avoiding giving right wing groups, the

press, and the state more fodder against an individual who had taken

brave stands against them.

Rosebraugh counterattacks

For three weeks, the union attempted to get Craig to negotiate. During

this time, both the striking workers and the union denied the press

interviews or information, not wanting to play into right wing blood

lust for the former ALF/ELF spokesman on the other end of the dispute.

Craig’s response was to hire a lawyer, and in conversations with

community members attempting to mediate he declared he would “close the

business before he would hire those workers back.” Finally, after three

weeks of stonewalling from the owner, the workers went to the press.

Three local papers covered the story, and Craig responded by spending

almost $3000 on a full-page ad in the two local weekly papers. His

advertisement names the four workers and one IWW representative with

full legal names, and accuses the IWW of trying to shut down Portland’s

“Most Progressive Business.” In a string of lies, the ad accuses IWW

representatives of bringing a mob to intimidate and harass Craig during

his peak business hours.

The most visible gauge of the debate within the “activist community” in

Portland revolved around the Portland Indymedia site. From accusations

of the IWW being a part of a COINTELPRO operation (carried as far as

naming specific striking workers as cops) to condemnation of the IWW

because it allows its members and organizers to eat meat, a rather

entertaining discussion ensued.

ARISSA is an organization launched by Craig a few years back,

ideologically driven by Craig’s first book, “The Logic of Political

Violence.” Rosebraugh’s supporters and members of ARISSA went on

Indymedia to post numerous accusations of police infiltration and state

collusion, specifically naming the IWW and striking workers as

provocateurs and agents. The posting of unfounded and unverifiable

accusations in a public forum goes beyond the obvious attempts at

displacing responsibility for the strike on Craig’s behalf. It enters

the dangerous, irresponsible realm of snitch-jacketing: opening those

truly struggling for a better world to manipulations by the state.

Following the thread of debate on Indymedia, the accusations quickly

became picked up and repeated as fact, although no individual or

organization had produced a shred of evidence to verify them.

Where does the activist ‘left’ stand on class?

Craig himself has been a very visible and vocal name within Portland’s

activist community. Because of this, the Indymedia debate was largely

split along two lines. In the minority of those posting, there were

those who recognized that workers’ struggles against boss-imposed

direction and discipline against the alienation that capitalist work

relationships foster, regardless of good intentions, is at the base of

the struggle for the new society. These folks supported the IWW and the

strike. On the other, there were those who argued that for a broad range

of reasons--Craig’s past work, the media’s blood lust for him, the fact

that the restaurant was all organic and vegan and locally owned, or that

Craig’s intention with the restaurant was to, “fund social change

ventures”—that the union should not have involved itself in the strike.

To those on Craig’s side of the fence, the IWW was guilty of undermining

the community, the struggle, and the revolution itself by supporting

these workers. A number of people, Craig included, even argued that the

workers had no right to protest because with tips they were making a

better wage than other workers in the area.

These responses from Rosebraugh, ARISSA, and the Portland activist

community provide an excellent demonstration of a number of limitations

of a class-less “progressive” politics. Even when playing lip service to

worker’s struggles, to liberation, and to revolution itself, the

“activist” left is dominated by petit bourgeois voices. This is not

meant as a simplistic assessment of individuals based on class

background. What this actually reflects is how the activist left, which

has often the people who have the most access to resources. Because

class and class interests have not been at the fore of the “new

anti-globalization” activist movement, it has not been capable of

developing a politic capable of assuring that leadership and voice will

be given to social groupings currently disenfranchised within this

system. In missing this critical understanding—an assessment of which

class and which portions of that class are most likely to push struggles

into revolutionary directions—this movement has missed the target

entirely. The voices currently dominating the discussion have class

interests incapable of bringing a meaningful criticism of capital and

the social relationships that result from capitalism.

This is a significant reason why this “new activist left” does not have

a mass base or appeal within the working class. Due to its lack of class

position, it is those who have access to resources that get to define

the politics of this movement. When those resources and the privilege

that come with them come are questioned in struggle (no matter how

small), real principles go out the window. It’s fine to talk about

saving forests, monkeys, and fighting imperialism outside of the Empire

itself. It is also tactical to host, “Ending white supremacy” trainings

and sessions deconstructing privilege. But when real struggle comes to

these leaders’ own backyards and they find themselves in a position

where their own relationships to capitalism are seriously questioned,

class interests themselves speak louder than revolutionary sloganeering.

This small strike brings to the fore why the “activist left” has little

interest to that broad, stratified and diverse mass we call the working

class. In challenging the alienation that is a necessary by-product of

work under capitalism, the struggle against that alienation is the

actual basis of struggle for a new world. The voices leading the

“activist left” are incapable of allowing a criticism that answers to

the daily struggles of workers and to their alienation. This is in part

because they cannot grasp the real meaning of these struggles but even

more, they can’t grasp the actual experience of that alienation. Their

class positions guide their actions, regardless of their theoretical

understanding (or misunderstanding) of the struggle we face.

Particularly telling are some of Craig’s arguments in his paid

advertisement: that the workers were well paid (a debatable assertion),

or that his actions in the restaurant were justified because the

restaurant was going to fund his “social change ventures.” The

statements made on Indymedia by the workers themselves are arguments

that a meaningful revolutionary politic must be based on the rejection

of capitalist work models themselves. This politics is a yearning for

worker control and not simply a struggle for wages. It’s a struggle to

reclaim that large portion of their lives working for someone else and

to reorganize it in a manner that suits their own inclinations,

regardless of the “revolutionarily consciousness” of their boss.

Workers’ struggles are struggles against work

It is the struggle and rejection of work itself, and the alienation that

is inherent in wage labor, in which the seeds of the new world lie. Any

“revolutionary” movement incapable of seeing the rejection of work

itself as the basis for struggle will find itself unable to relate to

the daily struggles of the only class of people who are capable of

bringing this decrepit system to its knees, regardless of whether the

facet of struggle is against police brutality, environmental

devastation, prisons, poverty, or any of the other potentially explosive

contradictions that our society confronts. It is within the struggles

workers are constantly waging to reclaim control of the workplace itself

that revolutionaries must learn to recognize the potential revolutionary

force in those portions of the population so often dismissed by

activists as “backwards” and inept.

Lessons in intersections

The situation with Craig Rosebraugh and his little adventure in petit

bourgeois capitalism have only brought a suppressed contradiction within

this new activist left to the fore. The activist community is

comfortable fighting for rights for animals, for an end to clear

cutting, for more bikes, and even sometimes advocating armed struggle as

an avenue for social change. As a white-led and largely privileged

strata, there is a massive disconnect between reading Ward Churchill and

writing your thesis on armed struggle and actually being a part of

organizing a movement capable of asserting its own power and defending

itself. Craig’s inability to recognize how truly relinquishing power and

privilege are necessary in creating the space for revolutionary

leadership is an excellent example of this stumbling block. This same

political trend is good at holding trainings and workshops on

deconstructing privilege and speaking the language of “communities of

color” and ”revolutionary feminism,” but as a movement it is incapable

of opening spaces where theses communities and perspectives can actually

lead a movement. It will continued to be incapable until it not only

speaks of, but puts into play a recognition of class, and how it

interacts with racism, sexism, and all of the other destruction reaped

upon our planet and our lives. This is not an argument that the long

sought after unity of the working class across racial, sexual, and other

boundaries will simplistically come about as a result of workplace

struggles. It is simply an acknowledgement that to even begin to

confront the central questions of race, class, and gender in building a

revolutionary movement, a recognition of the limitations and misleading

nature of the activist left’s politics must be given.

What happens when the interests of those truly disenfranchised (and the

only class capable of making the revolutionary change we envision) come

into conflict with a fearless leader who is using a capitalist

enterprise to further his revolutionary projects? There is no longer a

fence for “anti-capitalists, anarchists, radicals, or progressives” to

sit on when it comes to class.

The activist left’s defense of Rosebraugh’s actions against wildcat

activity by workers within his restaurant provides a long-needed

clarification of the position of a number of organizations and

individuals within this milieu. Craig’s thousands of dollars of

advertising are a great opportunity for the IWW to define itself as

clearly committed to a revolutionary model that is led by workers

themselves. In doing so, it has placed the IWW in a position of

alienation from portions of the activist left but opened itself to an

explicit commitment to supporting workers in their struggle to regain

control of their workplaces and their lives. (Four new workers called to

join the union in the two days after Rosebraugh’s ad was published.) Not

only is this clarification useful, it is necessary if we are to build a

mass movement with class and race at the fore. What this small struggle

has done is force the activist left to declare its alliances--on one

side the workers, and on the other, an opportunist, underdeveloped

politic. This opportunistic side of the left’s own class interests leave

it unable to see how the struggle of workers against not only poverty

but for control of the production process itself is the only basis on

which we can begin to build a new society.

For those not in the IWW, or not engaged in organizing around workplace

struggles, this is an opportunity to reflect on how we must break with

this class-less left if we are to develop organizations capable of

interacting with the real struggles of oppressed and potentially

revolutionary strata within the United States itself. There is a massive

segment of the population forced to struggle daily against numerous

contradictions, which threaten to open this state to a real

revolutionary upsurge. A movement led by petit bourgeois class interests

will at best co-opt these upsurges, and at worst be entirely incapable

of engaging them. If we plan to be a part of those struggles, to engage

with them, or to work alongside them, we must drop the baggage of the

existing left, and forge a new movement with an explicit commitment to

developing leadership and analysis outside of that milieu.