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Vol. 72/No. 50      December 22, 2008

 
On the Picket Line
 
UK port workers hold two-day
strike to protest privatization

LONDON—Workers at one of the busiest ferry ports in the United Kingdom plan further strike action to defend jobs, pensions, and work conditions. A lively demonstration of more than 300 at the south coast port of Dover took place November 15, followed by a 48-hour strike organized November 19 by members of the Transport and General Workers’ section of the Unite union.

The government-run Dover Harbour Board is transferring the jobs of 190 dock and ferry workers to private companies. Neil Bartley, a mooring worker, told the Militant, “From February next year, work will be outsourced to other companies. For 90 days they promise present conditions but after that our jobs, wages, and pensions are on the line.”

Bartley said that French ferry workers are considering similar action and solidarity. He said the company tried to undermine the strike with Nepalese agency workers but the union met with the Gurkha veterans’ organization and the Nepalese workers refused to cross the picket line.

“I never thought I’d be here, it would seem alien to me,” said Paul Keeler, another port worker. “Most of us are past our 30s and this is the first strike any of us have joined.”

Celia Pugh

Minnesota hospital workers
strike against benefit cuts

MINNEAPOLIS—Health-care workers conducted a 48-hour strike November 24-26 against Regina Medical Center in Hastings, Minnesota.

About 230 members of Service Employees International Union Local 113 set up picket lines after hospital administrators insisted on major cutbacks on pension contributions and increased payments by workers for health insurance. The strikers included nurses’ aides, X-ray technicians, physical therapy aides, housekeepers, dietary workers, and transcriptionists.

Union members at the hospital and nursing home have been without a contract since October 31. Officials are seeking to reduce the hospital’s retirement contribution for union and nonunion workers from 8 percent to 6 percent for those with six or more years of service, and from 4 percent to 3 percent for those with five or fewer years.

“How can they expect that we can afford this package when we’re earning only $14 to $17 an hour?” Karen Martineau, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It’s a challenge, especially as a single parent, to make ends meet.” Martineau added that she faces a 33 percent increase in her health-care costs.

Workers will vote December 10 on whether to accept a contract proposal from the hospital or authorize another strike.

—Tom Fiske

South African parliament
passes mine safety law

South Africa’s parliament passed a law November 21 that raises penalties for mining companies for safety violations. The law could hold some mining bosses criminally responsible for deaths of workers on the job. The National Union of Mineworkers campaigned for the bill, which the mining companies say is “punitive.”

Under the law penalties could rise from 200,000 rand to 1 million (1 rand=US 10 cents). Mine bosses could be fined as much as $300,000 and be imprisoned for five years.

South Africa is the world’s top producer of platinum along with 11 percent of the world’s gold. Mine deaths are far fewer than in the years immediately following the fall of the apartheid regime. There were 221 deaths in South African mines last year, up from 200 in 2006.

—Sam Manuel
 
 
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Win 60 days’ pay, medical benefits
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