From: hauben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben)
Subject: Charter for newgroup ALT.AMATEUR-COMP
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 20:30:04 GMT

		alt.amateur-comp Charter
 
     Alt.amateur-comp is a conference where readers
and writers can discuss the articles and subjects that appear in 
the electronic and printed newsletter "The Amateur Computerist".  
The Amateur Computerist was born out of the battle to continue 
computer programming classes for workers at the Ford Rouge 
Factory in Dearborn, MI after Ford and UAW officials ended the 
classes in February 1987. In our first issue we wrote: "There
was an effort by administrators of the UAW-Ford program at the 
Dearborn Engine Plant to kill interest in computers and computer 
programming. We want to keep interest alive because computers are 
the future." ("Introduction", vol I, no. 1)
 
     The first issue of the newsletter was published February 11,
1988 and dedicated to the Flint sitdown pioneers who began the 
UAW. Articles have appeared in the newsletter from some of those 
pioneers who welcomed the newsletter and the computer, saying,
"From the Great Wall to the Great Pyramid, from the hieroglypics 
to the screen of the computer, mankind is still
progressing." ("Dawn of a New Era", vol I, no. 1)
The sitdowner pioneers who built the UAW believed that the 
problems of automation had still to be solved by the upcoming 
generation.   
 
     The newsletter is dedicated to support for grassroots 
efforts and movements like the "computers for the people 
movement" that gave birth to the personal computer in the
1970's and 1980's. Hard efforts of many people over hundreds
of years led to the production of a working computer in the
1940's and then a personal computer that people could afford in
the 1970's. This history has been serialized in several issues of
the newsletter.
 
     Most recently the newsletter has begun an online edition that is
available free. We are beginning to document the progressive
impact of democratic developments like usenet news and the 
internet and we plan to have a supplement dedicated to these 
developments.
 
     The Amateur Computerist was described by Andrew Ross and 
Constance Pawley in their recent book "Technoculture" (Univ of 
Minnesota Press, 1991, p. 125) as follows:
 
     "When worker education classes in computer programming were
     discontinued by management at the Ford Rouge Plant in 
     Dearborn, Michigan, United Auto Workers members began to 
     publish a newsletter called the 'Amateur Computerist' to
     fill the gap. Among the columnists and correspondents in 
     the magazine have been veterans of the Flint sit-down strikes
     who see a clear historical continuity between the problem of
     labor organization in the thirties and the problem of 
     automation and deskilling today. Workers' computer literacy 
     is seen as essential not only to the demystification of the 
     computer and the reskilling of workers, but also to labor's 
     capacity to intervene in decisions about new technologies 
     that might result in shorter hours and thus in `work
     efficiency' rather than worker efficiency."
 
     The newsgroup will also make available the electronic 
version of the Amateur Computerist when a new issue is published.

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  One of the reasons for proposing this group is that there is
currently no place on usenet that we know of where issues involving
computers and workers are dealt with.

If you wish to directly contact the editors write to either
Ronda Hauben at ae547@yfn.ysu.edu or ronda@umcc.ais.org
or
Michael Hauben at hauben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu 
  or am893@cleveland.freenet.edu