This column is devoted to reporting the resistance by working people to the employers' assault on their living standards, working conditions, and unions.
We invite you to contribute short items to this column as a way for other fighting workers around the world to read about and learn from these important struggles. Jot down a few lines about what is happening in your union, at your workplace, or other workplaces in your area, including interesting political discussions.
Some 2,100 bus drivers, members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, went on strike in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, October 9. It is the first bus strike in the region since 1969.
Both sides agree the key issue is part-time workers. These drivers are paid less and have almost no benefits. They can be scheduled for either morning or afternoon rush hours.
The union says 23 percent of the drivers are already part-time, and that management wants to increase this to 52 percent. The Metropolitan Council Transit Operations (MCTO) claims 15 percent are now part-time, and they want to double this figure.
A full-time job as a bus driver is a rough schedule. Currently, about 70 percent of the drivers work a split shift. "It takes us about 12 hours to make our 8 hours' pay," said a driver on the Lake St. bus barn picket line. "It takes almost 30 years' seniority now to get a non-split schedule."
In addition, the MCTO wants to introduce copayments for medical insurance. The company is offering a 4 percent raise over two years. "The new medical costs alone will eat that up," said a driver at the Snelling Ave. barn. Workers are upset that managers gave themselves raises of up to 11 percent.
Ogilvie workers win contract, end walkout
Following a difficult 16-month strike, workers at the
ADM-Ogilvie flour mill in Montreal returned to work
September 25 with a three-year collective agreement.
The new agreement maintains two rights that workers said were essential when they walked out on June 6, 1994 - respect of seniority rights in the case of layoffs or job promotion, and no contracting-out of maintenance work while members who are trades workers are laid off. The company had said it would never bow on those issues.
"The goal of ADM from the beginning was to have total control over our rights and work conditions," explained striker Serge Bérubé. "They have failed to achieve that. Our union is stronger than they thought."
Workers will receive a $1500 payment in each of the first two years, and a 2.7 percent wage increase in the third. None of the scabs who ran the mill during the strike will have a job.
"We're going back with our heads high," said Bérubé. "But they have weakened us."
There is now a two-tier wage in the mill, with new hires earning $4 per hour less. Some workers voted against the agreement because it eliminates a salary guarantee for those with more than 15 years' seniority.
In addition, only 62 of the 116 unionists have been called back to work. Those not recalled have 90 days to decide between a severance package of 90 hours' pay for each year of service or being placed on a two-year right-of- recall list.
Liverpool dockers locked out
Five hundred Liverpool dockers have been fired and
locked out by their employer, the Mersey Docks and Harbour
Co., for taking action in defense of some workers wrongfully
dismissed. At the heart of the conflict is the employer's
long-term offensive against the dockers' rights on the job,
and resistance to attempts to use more "casual" workers.
Management dismissed a handful of young workers who refused to unload a ship under conditions outside a standing agreement on overtime. Eighty recently hired dockers immediately stopped working in support of their fellow workers and picketed the port. After a mass meeting, all the 500 refused to cross the picket lines.
Management responded by locking them out, charging that the dispute was in breach of contract, and followed up with dismissal notices. Mike Camden, a member of the Port Shop Stewards Committee, said at a mass meeting, "We fully understood what we were doing when we responded to the attacks on these young workers. We knew that they would threaten us with loss of jobs, pension rights, everything. But we were not going to cross those picket lines."
Into the third week of the dispute, the dock bosses are meeting a growing resistance they probably never anticipated. Some 2,000 people marched in Liverpool city center in support of the dockers and local firefighters who are also involved in a labor dispute.
Detroit newspapers
reject union offer
Six newspaper unions offered October 5 to suspend their
walkout, return to work under expired contracts, negotiate
for 30 days, and submit unresolved issues to binding
arbitration.
Officials of the Detroit News Agency (DNA),which prints and distributes the Detroit News and Free Press, called the unions' proposal "unrealistic." News editor and publisher Robert Giles said the papers intend to retain the scabs hired during the strike, claiming, "Our commitment to them is a very high priority."
The strike began July 13, when 2,500 workers walked off the job over management's refusal to engage in serious bargaining toward new contracts. The unions have won wide support among working people in Detroit and elsewhere.
Five hundred strikers and supporters picketed two distribution centers in Detroit and Oak Park the night of October 7, delaying delivery of 85,000 papers. Oak Park cops attacked, bloodying one woman and arresting five pickets.
Michael Pennock in Minneapolis; Roger Annis, member of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Local 841 in Montreal; Pete Kennedy in Manchester, England; and Steve Marshall a member of the United Transportation Union in Detroit, contributed to this column.