Bob McGlynn
New York City, d.23.August.2016
New York City bike messenger Bob McGlynn was an early messenger
activist. Faced with police harassment and city government attempts
to oppressively regulate cyclists, in 1982 he organized the first
bike messengers’ union in New York, the Independent Couriers
Association. In 1987, when Mayor Ed Koch issued an order
banning bicycles from three Midtown avenues during working hours,
the messengers repeatedly rode in a large group in defiance. McGlynn
was on the frontlines of this successful struggle — the ban was
overturned as unenforceable.
In 1985, McGlynn wrote this piece, "Road
Warriors & Road Worriers - NYC Bike Messenger Tail of Toil"
about the job and culture of bike messengers:
I remember once asking at a meeting of 50 bike
messengers, “has anyone here not had an accident? “ No one raised
their hands.
Such is the reality of bicycle messengering beneath the human
interest stories which romanticise “those nonconformist free
spirits, going for the big bucks” ; and/or condemning us for
murderous wild riding, “law breaking,” “bad attitudes ... ..
mental retardation,” etc.
I find that many peoples' overcuriosity about bike messengers
borders on the neurotic. “You do that!? ... Wow...” or (jealously)
“Well you've got some freedom but you can't do it all your life
you know.” Perhaps they want/need a little of that “free spirit”
stuff: the relative frontier of the open street vis-a-vis the
unnatural enclosedness of 9 to 5 land can be quite intriguing with
its danger and autonomy.
I'm going to concentrate on my own experience as a bike courier,
although there are many types of messengers, primarily foot
messengers, truckers, MC's (motorcyclists), and your occasional
skateboarder or roller skater.
Bikers work mostly for messenger companies that specialize in
messengering, although some companies (say in the film industry)
employ their own in-house bikers.
What we do is simple; we ride to one place, pick up ('p.u.' in our
lingo) a letter, package, whatever, put it in a bag strapped
around our back, and deliver it to another place. We get most jobs
by continuously calling up our company dispatcher who directs us
to the next assignment. The alternative if you feel like saving
phone money (we aren't reimbursed for phone calls, although many
clients let us use their phones for free), is to go back to the
company to get assigned more work, but that's normally
inefficient. If we're lucky, we'll get a few jobs at a time—if
things are slow, we'll get them one at a time, or none. We get
paid mostly on both a piece rate and commission basis. We get paid
per job and get paid a percentage of the job cost (i.e. what the
client is charged). So if the average minimum cost for a midtown
pickup and delivery is about $5.50, and the average commission is
50%, then we make $2.75 for that job. Many companies have
additional costs added on for extra distance traveled (''zones” ),
size and weight of pickup (oversize), waiting time (if the p.u.
isn't ready when we get there), etc. Some of us make another 5-10%
on rain or snow days. If we kill ourselves and ride hard and fast
without breaks, a number of us can make a generalized average of
about $9 an hour, but others, who are newcomers or who aren't so
lucky or adept, make $5.00 an hour. There are also slow periods
when everyone is making shit. Legendary stories about how we're
all making $100 a day ain't true. And I've never met anyone that's
clearing $18,000 a year (not that some lone lucky maniac isn't
pulling that). Ya gotta take breaks in this business (plus we have
to cover bike repairs and all other expenses related to the job).
Last but not least, we are (on paper) “Independent Contractors” :
meaning we are “our own bosses,” and not employees. More on that
BULLSHIT later.
More
here...
Bob McGlynn Dies at 60
Visionary of NYC and International Anarchist Scene
by Bill Weinberg
Fifth Estate # 397, Winter, 2017
Bob McGlynn, a longtime fighter, organizer and visionary in New York
City’s anarchist scene, who became known internationally for his
solidarity work with activists in the East Bloc, died of a heart
attack Aug. 23 at his home in Yonkers. He was 60 years old.
With his long hair, army boots, sleeveless denim jacket and
prize-fighter’s build, McGlynn could be taken for a biker. But he
was motivated by an intense idealism.
Bob’s long and varied activist career began in the early 1980s with
the Brooklyn Anti-Nuclear Group (BANG), which was organizing to shut
down the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of the city. His
artistically crude, but politically sophisticated cartoons gave the
BANG newsletter a punk aesthetic.
In this same period, he began working as a bicycle messenger, which
also thrust him into political activity. Faced with police
harassment and city government attempts to oppressively regulate
cyclists, in 1982 he organized the first bike messengers union in
New York, the Independent Couriers Association.
In 1987, when Mayor Ed Koch issued an order banning bicycles from
three Midtown avenues during working hours, the messengers
repeatedly rode en masse in defiance.
McGlynn was on the frontlines of this successful struggle-the ban
was overturned as unenforceable. Bob McGlynn proudly called himself
the “King of All Bicycle Messengers.”
Bob was again facing off with police in the streets when the city
attempted to impose a curfew in Tompkins Square Park in 1988. That
set off three years of class war on the gentrifying Lower East Side,
with squatters, anarchists, and the homeless fighting the cops in an
endless series of angry protests and riots.
But McGlynn’s special passion was building ties of solidarity with
anti-nuclear, anti-militarist and ecological activists in countries
under the Soviet Union’s domination; challenging work in the
paranoid and polarized atmosphere of the Reagan Cold War era.
In 1983, Bob and several friends formed a New York sister
organization to the Moscow Trust Group. The Trust Group, with its
unassuming name, was created by Moscow activists as an acceptable
cover to advocate for nuclear disarmament. Now linked with a U.S.
organization, the Moscow activists had greater visibility, and were
less vulnerable to being interned or disappeared by Soviet
authorities.
In 1986, in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, McGlynn and his
Trust Group collaborator, Ann-Marie Hendrickson, joined with two
activists from the UK to travel to Moscow-smuggling in
Russian-language flyers on the dangers of radiation and a banner
reading, “No more Hiroshimas, No more Chernobyls-Peace and
Environmental Safety for All.”
They scheduled the action for early August, timed for the Hiroshima
anniversary. The activists promptly headed to Moscow’s Gorky Park
where they unfurled their banner and began distributing the
leaflets. Bob and the others were quickly arrested by the KGB. After
a few days in custody, they were deported, but the action won
international media coverage.
Back in New York City after this escapade, McGlynn helped transform
the local Trust Group into Neither East Nor West (NENW)-dedicated to
supporting anti-authoritarian opposition forces not only in Russia
but throughout Eastern Europe.
As the Cold War entered its endgame, such groups were fast gaining
ground and NENW organized campaigns and demonstrations to support
East Bloc activists faced with imprisonment or persecution-raising
their international profile to give them more political space.
NENW gave special emphasis to linking activist struggles in the East
Bloc and the U.S.-for example, getting activists in Moscow, Minsk
and Warsaw to protest at their local U.S. embassies to demand
freedom for Kenny Toglia, a New York activist facing charges in the
Tompkins Square riots.
NENW was always clear on advancing a politics that rejected both
superpowers.
During this period, McGlynn saved his money he worked hard for as a
bike messenger to travel to Eastern Europe, meeting and networking
with activists in Poland and Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia).
NENW’s newsletter was an important networking tool in those
pre-Internet days. It was called On Gogol Boulevard, for Moscow’s
artistic and alternative scene hangout, and was mailed to contacts
around the world.
It later became an insert that appeared in anarchist publications
including Fifth Estate, The Shadow, Love & Rage, and Profane
Existence.
The Cold War came to an end, but NENW remained active for several
more years, especially doing support work for anti-war activists in
all the ex-Yugoslavia republics. McGlynn was also involved in
support work in this period for persecuted members of Nigeria’s
anarchist-oriented Awareness League.
Although mostly masked by pseudonyms, McGlynn’s persona was an
animating force in the 1980s zine scene. With Ann-Marie Hendrickson,
he was one of a group known as the Marginals that produced the
ultra-irreverent political humor zine, Shoe Polish Week. Bob often
wrote under the by-line of his nihilist alter-ego, Joey Homicides.
In the late 1990s, McGlynn retreated from Brooklyn to his childhood
home of Yonkers and withdrew from the activist scene to deal with
health problems. He had long been on pain-killers after throwing out
his back as a messenger.
Accustomed to an extremely active lifestyle, accommodating to
physical limitations also posed psychological challenges for him.
However, Bob recently emerged from his period of withdrawal. He
wrote a brief political memoir of NENW, which appeared in the
Spring/Summer 2014 edition of the Fifth Estate.
In February 2015, at a NENW reunion party held in Manhattan, McGlynn
spoke enthusiastically of reviving the group in light of the war in
Ukraine and renewed US-Russia rivalry. The group later that year
issued its first public statement in years, in support of Syria’s
revolutionary Kurds.
Bob McGlynn, who is survived by his longtime partner Joanna Pizzo,
will be remembered for his boundless love of freedom, his ruthless
single-standard politics, and intransigent hostility to all
dictatorships and superpowers.
Bob
McGlynn, linked Tompkins protests and glasnost
amNY September 8, 2016
BY BILL WEINBERG | Bob McGlynn, a longtime figure in New York City’s
anarchist scene who linked the Tompkins Square Park protests of the
1980s to pro-democracy movements in Eastern Europe, died of a heart
attack on Aug. 23 at his home in Yonkers. He was 60.
With his long hair, army boots, sleeveless denim jacket and
prizefighter’s build, McGlynn could be taken for a biker. But he was
motivated by an intense idealism.
McGlynn’s activist career began in the early 1980s with Brooklyn
Anti-Nuclear Group (BANG), which was organizing to shut down the
Indian Point nuclear power plant. His artistically crude but
politically sophisticated cartoons gave the BANG newsletter a punk
aesthetic.
In this same period, he began working as a bicycle messenger — which
also thrust him into political activity. Faced with police
harassment and city government attempts to oppressively regulate
cyclists, in 1982 he organized the first bike messengers’ union in
New York, the Independent Couriers Association. In 1987, when Mayor
Ed Koch issued an order banning bicycles from three Midtown avenues
during working hours, the messengers repeatedly rode in a large
group in defiance. McGlynn was on the frontlines of this successful
struggle — the ban was overturned as unenforceable. McGlynn proudly
called himself the “King of All Bicycle Messengers.”
McGlynn was again facing off with police in the streets when the
city attempted to impose a curfew on Tompkins Square Park in 1988.
That set off three years of conflict on the gentrifying Lower East
Side, with squatters, anarchists and the homeless fighting the cops
in an endless series of angry protests and riots. McGlynn, although
living in Brooklyn, biked across the river to join in the action.
But McGlynn’s special passion was building ties of solidarity with
anti-nuclear, anti-militarist and ecological activists in the
Eastern Bloc — challenging work in the paranoid and polarized
atmosphere of the Reagan Cold War.
This work began when McGlynn and friends formed a New York sister
organization to the Moscow Trust Group in 1983. The Trust Group,
with its unassuming name, had been formed by Moscow activists as an
“acceptable” cover to advocate for nuclear disarmament. Now linked
with a New York group, the Moscow activists had greater visibility,
and were less vulnerable to being imprisoned or “disappeared” by
Soviet authorities.
In 1986, in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, McGlynn and his NY
Trust Group collaborator Ann-Marie Hendrickson joined with two
activists from the U.K. to travel to Moscow — smuggling in
Russian-language fliers about the dangers of radiation and a banner
reading, “No More Hiroshimas, No More Chernobyls — Peace and
Environmental Safety for All.” The action took place in early
August, timed for the Hiroshima anniversary. They promptly headed to
Moscow’s Gorky Park, where they unfurled the banner, began
distributing the leaflets — and were of course quickly arrested by
the K.G.B. After a few days in custody, they were deported. The
action won international media coverage.
Back in New York after this escapade, McGlynn helped transform the
local Trust Group into Neither East Nor West (NENW) — dedicated to
supporting anti-authoritarian forces throughout Eastern Europe. As
the Cold War entered its endgame, such groups were fast gaining
ground, and NENW organized campaigns and demonstrations to support
Eastern Bloc activists faced with imprisonment or persecution.
NENW gave special emphasis to linking activist struggles in the
Eastern Bloc and the U.S. — for instance, getting activists in
Moscow, Minsk and Warsaw to protest at their local U.S. embassies to
demand freedom for Kenny Toglia, a New York activist facing charges
in the Tompkins Square riots.
During this period, McGlynn saved up his money that he worked hard
for as a bike messenger to travel to Eastern Europe, meeting and
networking with activists in Poland and Slovenia, the latter then
part of Yugoslavia.
more...
