Wobblies open center aimed at port drivers
If you though the Wobblies, the storied union of Big Bill Haywood and Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, is these days just something you can read about in a moldy history textbook, think again.
A group of truck drivers and the International Workers of the World chose May Day as the occasion to open a driver education and organizing center in Elizabeth, N.J.
The union said it is the first of its sort to be opened in the nation, and “is being organized to fight for and enforce the rights of rail and port truckers” that work in the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Founders of the center say their goal is to educate and mobilize truckers around issues that affect their workplace and their community, including port security and environmental concerns about diesel pollution.
The founders say they will apply for grants to convert trucks to run on biodiesel fuel, as well as looking into other sustainable, green alternatives.
The center is being named in commemoration of Teamster organizer Jos' Gilberto Soto, who the union said was assassinated in El Salvador while organizing port truckers there in 2004.