BREAKING NEWS!

Inkworks Press has just won two Silver Awards in the 2013 Showcase of Print/Design Excellence sponsored by VMA.

More news to follow… but the award winning print jobs were for Futures Without Violence’s groundbreaking packet, Coaching Boys into Men, designed by our sister shop Design Action, and Hardscratch Press’ beautiful and tantalizing Farmers Market Lovers’ 2013 Calendar, featuring David Johnson’s mouthwatering watercolors.

Both jobs were printed, in part or in full, on our Presstek 34DI four-color waterless press.

We were proud to have printed these, and are now doubly proud to have this work recognized! Most of all, thanks to our creative and inspiring customers for making this happen!

We were thrilled to work with with Pro Arts and help promote their upcoming Open Studios by printing this gorgeous poster.

According to the team at Pro Arts, “We chose Inkworks Press to print our East Bay Open Studios posters as we wanted to support sustainable business practices and we knew they would produce great work.“

Don’t miss the Open Studios in June!

Perfect-bound, full-color cover, full color or b/w text pages, affordable and elegant, in quantities of five to five hundred! Give our estimators a call now to make a stunning book of your poetry, short stories, artwork, family history, or political exposés! We will be happy to print as few or as many as you need…
Just give us a call at 510.845.7111!

A popular printing technique from the sixties and seventies enjoys a resurgence at Inkworks Press as we print a poster critiquing Fox News with three colors in one pass.

We at Inkworks Press are proud to print for this bold and outspoken environmental organization. The latest edition of their bulletin, World Rivers Review, is hitting the press any day now… look out for it!

Inkworks congratulates our sister collective Design Action on 10 years beautiful and provocative designs for change!

Join us on March 8 for a party and retrospective exhibit to celebrate 10 Years of Design Action at Oakland’s new political space, SoleSpace at 1714 Telegraph.

America Crystal Sugar Cooperative (ACS), the largest beet sugar processor in the United States and wholly owned by farmers, locked out its 1,300 union workers August 2011. Since then the co-op met with the workers only three times and has remained adamant that they will not negotiate their contract offer with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) which represents the workers.

ACS has plants in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, and while the workers in the latter two states receive unemployment benefits as locked out workers, over four hundred workers in North Dakota receive no supplemental wages. Families in small towns all across the Northern Midwest are facing hardship while the co-op hires scabs and rolls in the second most profitable year in history for the farmers who control the co-op.

The union has received support from many local and federal elected representatives. The former CFO of American Crystal Sugar called the co-op’s lack of concern for their labor force despicable. Nevertheless, at the last meeting with the co-op, in early June, the union faced an intransigent management team.

In response to the concerns of some of the workers, the union held another vote on the contract Saturday, June 23rd , the third since the lockout began. Previous votes showed over 90 percent rejection of the contract offer, and despite the months-long economic hardships on families, the workers again rejected the co-op offer by almost 2 to 1, with 82 percent of the membership voting.

ACS: A prosperous farmers’ cooperative

American Crystal Sugar proudly stands with the cooperative sector,
as it says on its website:

American Crystal Sugar Company is a world-class agricultural cooperative specializing in the production of sugar and related agri-products. American Crystal is owned by approximately 3,000 shareholders who raise 500,000 acres of sugarbeets in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota.

ACS is a member of the National Council of Farmers Cooperatives, which in May declared 2012 the Year of the Farmer Co-op, in coordination with the US and UN Year of the Cooperative commemorations. It is unfortunate that while many communities across the country are celebrating the vital economic benefits that cooperatives have brought to rural America, the communities affected by this lockout are suffering economic hardships.

Petition
TO BE DELIVERED TO AMERICAN CRYSTAL SUGAR CEO DAVE BERG

We, the undersigned, members of worker cooperatives, credit unions, food and housing co-ops, cooperative developers and educators, and customers of cooperatives across the United States, recognize that throughout American history amicable relations between unions and cooperatives have benefited both and we believe that fair labor practices are a vital element of the cooperative principles that American Crystal Sugar endorses.

We, therefore, as members of the US cooperative community, implore American Crystal Sugar to end the lockout and negotiate in good faith with their employees, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM).

Please sign the online petition here

Make a donation and learn more at the Crystal Greed support website.

See you in the streets!