Subject: Re: Verizon, Anonymous
From: Kevin Shields <Shields@iww.org>
Date: 8/20/11, 16:53
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Barrett,

Thanks very much for showing your interest. I'll explain the general situation we're in now, and if you want to go into any further detail or discuss the more sensitive aspects of what I'm proposing, tell me and we can figure out a more secure way to communicate than email. I know what I'm about to write is really long, but I think it's important to understand where we're coming from.

I'm a wobbly in Philadelphia. We've been active in supporting the Verizon struggle, mostly trying to help hold picket lines as an outside agitator. The workers in basically depend on radicals in the labor movement like me to do things that they can't do (blocking scab and such) because of pressures like the injunction and Verizon's ability to file unfair labor practices. US Labor Law is extremely strict and restrictive, and makes it almost impossible to anything effective while you're on strike.

Since the strike has started, everyone involved in the struggle has been scared shitless because of Verizon's brutal way of fighting this out. A manager suggested running people over, which is a reference to the murder of Gerry Horgan, a Bell Atlantic (Verizon's old moniker) employee that got run over by a scab's car during the 1989 strike (the cops said he threw himself on it). On top of that, Verizon scheduled workers to lose their health care at the end of the month, which could be a death sentence for a lot of people.

Because of all this and the CWA and IBEW's weakness at negotiating, we've been hearing for a while that they were going to end the strike before the end of the month, even if there was no agreement. When I wrote that last email to Allison it seemed imminent, now it's actually been declared. The workers are going back on Tuesday, and THEN they're going to continue to negotiate. The members of the union didn't vote on it, and while I can't put together a scientific poll of everyone out on strike, I'm confident in saying that most workers don't want to go back yet, without a doubt most workers in Philadelphia.

This is a really negative development, because now the union has no leverage in the talks, since it's made it clear that it isn't willing to stay out too long in the face of Verizon's threats. The International Business Times basically explained how this is the union caving in gentile language:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/201150/20110820/verizon-strike-cwa-ibew-health-benefits.htm

I've talked to a lot of workers that want to keep the struggle going, and the overwhelming sentiment I get is that since they can't walk back out anytime soon (too hard to organize since both the company and the union are against them), they would really like to make Verizon's operations a living hell while talks are still going on. Most are (justifiably) too scared do it themselves as workers because they'll be fired and/or sued if they intentionally lower the quality of their work, so there's been this pining to find a third-party that can do it for them.

The usual suspects that help out workers on strike (people like myself, you could say) mostly don't know shit about computers, we just block scabs. So, naturally, you-know-who came up.

I understand that Anonymous is working on what's important to Anonymous, and we obviously don't want to impose our agenda on anybody. We'd just like to know if any Anons are interested in this struggle and would like to apply their skills to it.

Solid,
-Kevin

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Kevin-

This is Barrett Brown; Allison forwarded me your message. I've been working with Anonymous for a while and have several key Anons operating out of my IRC. Let me know how I can help.
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302