The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.34           September 28, 1998 
 
 
Tennessee Miners Strike For Better Wages, Pensions  
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.

GORDONSVILLE, Tennessee - Some 200 members of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 8413 went on strike here August 3 at Savage Resources' zinc mine. Strikers are fighting for an improved three-year contract, after voting three-to-one to reject the company's latest offer. Local 8413 members are miners who work 1,400 feet underground to extract zinc and other minerals for Savage Resources Limited. Savage is an international mining and exploration firm that is one of Australia's 150 top- listed public companies.

The mine opened about 25 years ago and workers voted to join the USWA shortly after. Savage's nonunion zinc refinery in nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, is still working.

The main issues in the strike are about retirement benefits, bonus pay for the value of minerals extracted, and wages. Miners start out at only about $8 an hour and top out at around $13. The company is offering increases of only 30 cents an hour for each year of the contract.

Miners are also paid bonuses, based on company sales, on top of their hourly wage. One of the biggest issues for strikers is that Savage has been paying miners only 25 percent of what they're owed from the sale of mineral specimens extracted by a contractor. Local members also demand an improvement in the pitiful pension plan and a return to cost-of-living pay increases.

The mood on the picket line is confident and upbeat. Miners are determined to hold out long enough to force Savage offer a better contract. The last strike was in 1984.

James Duke, a mechanic with 23 years at Savage, and Sammy Overstreet, a construction repairman with 25 years, told the Militant that the strikers have been getting lots of support from working people here. Most strikers have easily been able to find other jobs, including working for tobacco farmers in this rural area about 50 miles east of Nashville. A number of the local members raise tobacco themselves or have small cattle herds.

The company got a surprise when the younger miners voted to strike right along with the majority of local members who have been there for many years. About half a dozen nonunion miners employed by Cowin mine construction company crossed the picket line when the strike started. Cowin has since pulled them out, according to striker Ronnie Gentry, who has worked at Savage for 22 years.

When the strike started, the company got an injunction restricting pickets to one of three mine entrances. It allowed only four pickets to be present, two of whom had to be moving at all times, and barred the picketers from talking to anyone approaching the mine. The union went to federal court and was able to have that injunction lifted. Strikers have set their signs in the middle of the road leading to the mine and maintain a visible and vocal picket 24 hours a day.

Pickets report that striking United Auto Workers at Peterbilt truck plant in Nashville have visited them.

Machine workers in Ontario strike for contract
MALTON, Ontario - More than 40 members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 252 struck Gill Machine Works September 3 to win their first contract. The company produces customized machine parts. The strikers marched in Toronto's Labor Day parade on September 7 to gain support for their struggle. Most of the workers are Punjabi and this is the first strike they have been a part of.

They are fighting against discriminatory practices by the company on wages, job classifications, and health benefits. The history of the company's discrimination includes hiring the bosses' relatives in the plant, most of whom under the contract offer will receive higher pay raises. Wages in the plant range from CAN $7.75 (CAN $1 = US $.66) per hour starting pay for general laborers to CAN $16-20 per hour for machine operators.

The strikers described to Militant reporters the acts of intimidation they faced when they signed their union cards. Verbal abuse by the boss increased, their breaks were shortened, and the company did not provide adequate toilette paper, soap or paper towels in the bathrooms. In the case of one worker the company refused to pay him 11 hours of overtime because he forgot to punch out at the end of the day. The unionists have also faced intimidation on the picket line.

The strikers are trying to stop the dozen or so scabs the company is bringing in daily. Five cops and for police cruisers were at the picket line on the morning of September 14 to ensure scabs got through. Strikers explained to visiting members of CAW Local 1285 that the cops are at the pickets every day. Unionists have reached out to other locals for support and have extended solidarity to two other strikes in the area. These include the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) on strike at W. Ralston, in Brampton, Ontario; and Brampton Catholic high school teachers who walked out September 1, protesting the provincial government's plan to impose increased teaching time. Striking teachers and members of CAW local 1285 at Chrysler's car plant in Bramalea have visited the picket line. And the Gill strikers have joined the CEP picket in Brampton.

Ontario plastics workers walk out on first strike
BRAMPTON, Ontario - "They want to get rid of our union, but we are going to stand strong," said picket captain Annette Gallant, a packer for eight years at the W. Ralston plastics plant in Brampton near Toronto. Gallant is one of about 70 strikers, members of amalgamated Local 819 of the CEP who walked September 4 over wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Strikers have set up a 24-hour picket line. At the two plant entrances they have skids to burn in barrels to keep warm at night.

They have hired a security outfit to intimidate the strikers - taking videos each time they try to hold up trucks coming in and out of the plant. The company got the fire department to force the workers to pay $20 a week for a permit to burn firewood and is trying to get the city to move the trailer that stands on municipal property. On September 15 the company is going to court to get an injunction limiting the number of pickets and reducing the time they hold up trucks from 20 to three minutes. A couple of nonunion plants are producing plastic bags to fill the orders of Ralston's main customer, Price Club.

Average wage is CAN $14.20 an hour (US $ 9.37). The workers are demanding a 40 cent increase in each year of a two-year contract. The bosses have offered 20 cents a year over a three- year contract, and virtually nothing on the meager benefits the workers now have.

This is the first strike at the plant. The workers voted 45 to 15 to carry out the action. The company is trying to maintain production with supervisory and office staff. So far only two union members have crossed the line under the pressure.

Machine operator Raj Swinarine, who has worked at the plant for 12 years, and other pickets described the working conditions. "When it's 60 degrees outside it's 90 degrees inside the plant," said Swinarine. "There are not enough fans or ventilation." The plant is a seven-day operation on two 12-hour shifts.

Workers in the area have brought skids for firewood, soda, and food. Strikers at the nearby Gill Machine Works have dropped by to show solidarity. And truckers and others driving by honk in support.

On September 14 the workers voted 39 to 19 to accept a company offer and return to work. The agreement includes a 35 cent annual raise for the duration of the three-year contrct, retroactive to April 3 when the last contract expired.

Striking paperworkers in Canada keep up pickets
SHAWINIGAN, Quebec - Morale was high on the picket line outside the Abitibi-Consolidated paper mills in Shawinigan and Grand-Mere when two Militant reporters visited August 22. The company had refused to negotiate a single contract with all 11 plants as had been done in the past. Denis Houde, a instrumentation technician in Grand-Mere, explained workers had walked out because "negotiating one mill at a time weakens you." The contract negotiated with Abitibi would then be used to set the pattern for all paperworkers east of Manitoba. Workers at one of the 11 mills recently voted to go back to work following an intense campaign by the company threatening to permanently close the mill.

The strike by more than 4,000 members of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers is having an impact. An article in the Globe and Mail reported that the newsprint giant's third-quarter profits are expected to be severely depressed. It quoted Jim Rowland, publisher of Canadian Paper Analyst, as saying "...if there wasn't a strike, prices [of newsprint] would be heading southward" like the prices of other natural resource-based products.

Roger Tremblay, a worker in the steam plant in Shawinigan, said that strikers receive Can$150 (US$99) weekly from the strike fund of their union. On top of this many other locals of the CEP have voted to donate two hours' pay per week to strikers, bringing their weekly amount up to as high as $373.

Susan Lamont and Kristin Meriam, members of USWA in Birmingham, Alabama; Vicky Mercier, member of CAW Local 1285 in Toronto; John Steele, member of International Association of Machinists Local 2113 in Toronto; and Joanne Pritchard in Montreal contributed to this column.

 
 
 
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