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HAMILTON, New Jersey -"We've been out since September 12," said Tom Wood, president of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 3355. "The company wants to be able to lay people off out of seniority and keep them on layoff while bringing in temporary workers with no job description who wouldn't belong to the union."
The bosses at Demag Delaval Turbomachinery call these temporary employees "Dixie Cup workers," Wood said, "because when they were done with them, they'd throw them away!"
There are 170 members of USWA Local 3355 on strike against Demag Delaval, which produces parts for naval ships, turbines, and boilers.
"The company implemented their last offer, which we had turned down, and sent us all a certified letter saying we no longer have a job," Wood continued. The March 3 letter informed unionists that as of March 15, the company intended to hire permanent replacements. Prior to that deadline, the workers could present unconditional offers - in writing - to return to work and, after the conclusion of the strike, could reapply for employment.
To date, the company refuses to negotiate. The state of New Jersey is denying the workers unemployment, claiming they are involved in an economic strike, which the Steelworkers strongly deny.
Two days before the contract expired, strikers Joe Haas and Tim Pollock explained, the company claimed there was a bomb scare in the plant and sent all the workers in the shop home. "But it was some kind of special bomb, that wouldn't get the people in the office, because they kept them at work!" commented Haas.
"They told us to take our tools when we left and had our paychecks at the door," Pollock added.
"Sounds like a lockout, doesn't it?" asked Haas.
The strikers have faced continual harassment from local police and IMAC security, a union-busting outfit hired by the company. While Militant reporters were in the union hall, a child from the neighborhood came in holding several 30-30 shells, high-powered live ammunition. He told the Steelworkers that a man matching the description of one of the most provocative IMAC goons had just driven up and put the ammunition on the sidewalk immediately in front of the union hall. Wood called the police, who took over an hour to arrive. "If Demag found bullets down there on the line," said unionist Al Koellhoffer, "we'd be pushed up against the fence. But if we call, they don't come."
"Yeah," said Haas. "We would've been arrested, arraigned, and jailed by now."
The company has also used the courts to limit the activities of Local 3355, getting an injunction early on against it having more than five pickets on the gates. The Steelworkers have responded by welcoming members of other unions, who have come on a regular basis to take the place of Local 3355 members on the line. Rallies of up to several hundred have been held outside the gates.
One rally took place March 16, the first day of the permanent replacements, when Teamsters from northern New Jersey, hotel workers from Atlantic City, communications workers presently fighting for a contract with the state, and others gathered to block scabs from entering the plant. The cops and IMAC organized buses to get the replacement workers through the crowd. Four unionists were arrested. "Anything that happens, IMAC films our reaction and they use it court against us," said striker José Colón.
Almost every morning 20 police cars sit by the gates checking the activity of the unionists, counting the number on the line, and seeing if other unionists are joining that day. "Or," said Koellhoffer, "they hide behind the building across the street."
Looking at a recent Militant, the Steelworkers were struck by the similarities between their fight and that of the USWA strikers at RMI Titanium in Ohio. "It's like reading about us!" said one. Commenting on the RMI slogan of "One Day Longer" another striker exclaimed, "That's our slogan too! We'll last one day longer than the company!"
Thousands protest low minimum wage in UK
TYNESIDE, England - Thousands of workers demonstrated here
April 10, protesting legislation by Anthony Blair's Labour
government that set a minimum wage level of L 3.60 per hour
( L 1 = $1.65), with workers below the age of 21 excluded.
The central demand of the action was a minimum wage of L 5
with a progression to the L 7 European Union minimum.
An estimated 15,000 took part in a march and rally, which were organized and built primarily by Unison, the health service union. Tyneside is a once heavily industrialized area in the northeast of England hit by large-scale closures in basic industry. Marchers carried a broad range of union banners in addition to Unison, with larger contingents from the Communication Workers Union, the General Municipal and Boilermakers union, and the Manufacturing, Science and Finance union. Other participants included members of the National Union of Students and the National Union of Mineworkers, North East Area.
There were also banners from workers involved in struggles, such as the Tameside Careworkers, from care homes locked out a year ago by Tameside Care Group for refusing to accept a take-back contract; Hillingdon Hospital workers, ancillary workers sacked after striking in October 1995 for refusing to sign a take back contract; Lufthansa LSG Skychefs workers, sacked for fighting against imposed changes in work practices; and Magnet workers from a Darlington fitted kitchen manufacturer, sacked in 1996 for refusing a divisive pay deal.
The march ended at a festival with music and stalls held in and around the Tele-Arena in Newcastle.
Teamster carhaulers launch contract fight
DETROIT - Hundreds of Teamsters from across the country
packed the Teamster Joint Council Hall here March 28. Many
were local union officials, though there were numerous
working members, attested to by the row of carhaul trucks
parked outside. They were joined by dozens of locked-out
Detroit newspaper workers and a small number of other Detroit-
area unionists.
The rally kicked off the union's campaign to win a decent contract for the 12,000 union members, drivers, yard workers, mechanics, and office workers in the carhaul industry. These workers move new vehicles from rail ramps and assembly plants to new car dealerships and handle about 95 percent of new car deliveries.
Union members work for 17 companies that make up the National Automobile Transport Industry, the national bargaining agent for the bosses. Seven thousand Teamsters, about 60 percent of those covered under the national contract, work for one company, Allied Holdings. The industry reported revenues of almost $2 billion last year, but when contract talks opened in February the employers demanded concessions. The national contract expires May 31.
Speakers included James P. Hoffa, the newly installed international president of the Teamsters, and Stephen Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers. They were joined by a host of local union officials from across the country. The general theme of all these speeches were that Hoffa would bring in a good contract.
In discussions with the drivers present, what came through was a determination to change ever-worsening conditions in the industry.
A number of older workers pointed out that there were 36,000 carhaul Teamsters only 25 years ago, but through speedup more vehicles are being moved by one-third that number today. They said the union needed to block "double- breasting," a practice in other parts of the trucking industry where employers set up nonunion companies to compete with their union operation and then demand concessions from the unionized workers. Pensions were also important to drivers.
After the rally, carhaul workers attended one of five workshops on how to organize the contract campaign. A popular chant during the rally summed up their mood, "United We Stand, United We Win."
Kathleen Flanagan in Newark, New Jersey; Hugh Robertson in Manchester; and John Sarge, a member of the United Auto Workers in Detroit, contributed to this column.