Fuck Yes!
Would that the USA still had that sort of solidarity and worker organization.

Voice of the people.

Steelworkers with"backhoes and dump trucks"?

What plant do these guys work at...Gold Rush's Quartz Mountain?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxnqvqQN3…

You show 'em!

Story is also reprinted in the Globe & Mail if anyone is having paywall problems:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/worl…

Oh, and alternate headline: Oligarch Repels Russians

Man with 280,000 blue-collar workers and heavy equipment? And they're loyal enough to listen to him and face down armed thugs while unarmed themselves? Am I allowed to be impressed?

“There are a lot of idiots with guns in my city,” said Aleksey Rybinsev, 38, a computer programmer who added he welcomed the new patrols, though he feared they might develop into another informal militia group.

Idiots with guns...so, on Thursdays, SLOG likes that..and all other days...no?

An oligarch telling his employees they'll lose their jobs if they don't follow Kiev and directing his executives to organize militias is a demonstration of "labor power"?

Anon1256 @10, I suppose this is as much a demonstration of labor power as the armed agitators who took over government offices in Eastern Ukraine are a true expression of the will of the Ukrainian people. Seriously, do you really think the steelworkers are more sympathetic to the insurgents than they are to their boss?

@11 - I suspect steelworkers are most sympathetic to the idea of keeping their livelihood whether or not their boss is portraying an accurate picture of the choices they face (I honestly don't know). In any case, it's very difficult to sort out a picture of what Eastern Ukrainians want as a whole although I suspect they are very divided which negates a solution that would satisfy everyone. As an outsider with limited information beside the propaganda "catapulted" by both sides, I'd think a Finlandisation model (geopolitically neutral) is the only way to keep the country whole.