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.
London Rail Workers Stage Third One-Day Strike
"Tube strike chaos `worst yet'" was the headline in the
September 4 issue of the London Evening Standard. Some 6,000
striking members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and
Transport Workers (RMT) brought the London underground rail
system to a halt September 4. The labor action was the third
in a series of one-day work stoppages.
Train drivers, station staff, signal workers, and maintenance workers joined the walkout.
The RMT is demanding higher wages and better working conditions, especially fewer work hours. Management has offered a 3 percent wage increase (below the current level of inflation) and vague promises of a reduction to 40 hours a week in August 1996. Station staff currently work a 41.25 hour week.
The strike has been successful on all three days. Around 50 percent of the normal service failed to run overall. Six out of the busiest nine lines were effectively disrupted by the strike. Some important lines on the system were even more badly hit; the Piccadilly line which serves London's Heathrow Airport could run only a 25 percent service. The Waterloo to City line, serving the important City of London area, was completely closed down during each strike.
To keep stations open and some trains running, safety regulations were flouted. Unqualified persons, including a manager's secretary at one station and personnel office staff, were drafted. Trains ran that had not been checked and prepared by maintenance; signal cabins were operated by unqualified staff.
The RMT has called for a 48-hour stoppage on September 21. In the meantime, they are planning talks with management under the auspices of the government arbitration service.
Kmart workers step up fight for new contract
"Coins make noise we do not need - Give us more dollars
got families to feed!" were the words to a song workers
began singing at a protest recently inside the Kmart
distribution center in Greensboro. The action brought
together 100 workers, many of whom left their work stations
to participate in the rally. This event was part of a series
of protests inside and outside the plant to increase
pressure on the company to negotiate a first contract.
"I was proud of everybody who took part in the rally, including many who usually don't go to union meetings," said Yvonne Peasely, a first shift worker and a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) negotiating committee. "It was our best rally in a long time."
Last November the company offered a 5-cent an hour raise for workers with 2 years seniority. This was seen as a slap in the face by the workers who are not only fighting for better wages but for dignity on the job. Workers responded with a week long unfair labor practices strike. This June, union members staged a rally outside the plant demanding parity with the other distribution centers run by Kmart around the country on the issue of sick time off.
There are 12 such centers around the country. The warehouse in Greensboro allows the least amount of sick time and has the lowest wages. In Greensboro the work force is majority Black, with a growing number of Latino workers. At the August negotiating session the company put a 20-cent raise on the table as being in the "ball park that Kmart has in mind."
In August the company announced a decertification drive in the local newspaper hoping the threat would convince some workers to help them get rid of the union. Several leaflets were passed out in the name of one supervisor who was publicly spearheading the anti-union effort, claiming the workers would be better off without the union. But after two weeks they had to drop their petition effort.
The National Labor Relations Board has found Kmart guilty of dozens of violations at the Greensboro center including firing and harassing union members, refusing to provide health and safety information, and bargaining in bad faith. Recently, additional charges were filed by two workers who were falsely accused of illegal drug use and fired, even though they tested negative for drugs.
In the last few weeks, rank and file workers from all three shifts have visited postal workers union locals, the Greensboro AFL-CIO labor council, members of the Greensboro City Council, the NAACP, and community organizations like the Poor People's Organization to win support for their fight. UNITE members have also been invited to set up an information table at the statewide AFL-CIO convention at the end of September.
"I went to my first demonstration when I was fifteen years old, that was in 1955 around voting rights," said Alonzo Russell, a freight shipper at Kmart. "Some people died in that fight. But we didn't bow down then, and I'm not about to bow down now."
"We feel great," say new union meatpackers
Workers at Washington Beef in Toppenish voted more than
two to one for joining the United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) union August 25.
"We feel great. It's a great victory for the workers," Kevin Williams, an organizer for the UFCW told the Yakima Herald Republic after the 253-118 vote.
In 1985, the meatpackers at Washington Beef's Toppenish and Union Gap plants struck for a union contract, after the company refused to negotiate a contract with the UFCW. The company hired replacement workers and broke the strike. For the last nine years, the plants have operated non-union.
Washington Beef is the largest independent beef processor on the West Coast. The Toppenish plant has both slaughterhouse and processing operations, employing about 600 workers, with $250 million in sales during 1994.
Last year it spent $10 million expanding the plant, increasing production capacity by 40 percent.
Earlier this year, nearly 85 percent of the 425 eligible employees signed union authorization cards earlier this year. Company management has not decided whether to challenge the election.
Steelworkers locked out at Ohio plant
Some 1,700 steelworkers set up picket lines after being
locked out at Warren Consolidated Industries (WCI) in
Warren, Ohio, August 31. The WCI bosses closed the gates
when negotiations broke down with United Steelworkers of
America Locals 1375 and 6824. WCI has contracted the union-
busting outfit Nuckols, Inc., to bring in strikebreakers.
The strikers say that the future of their union and pensions are at stake in this battle. The company has been sold twice in the last two decades and rumors are floating that the current owner wants to sell also. WCI, formerly owned by LTV Steel, is a specialty steel maker producing nearly 1.7 million tons of steel a year.
Phil Waterhouse, member of the RMT, and Martin Hill, member of the Transportation and General Workers Union, in London; Joan Paltrineri and M.J. Rahn, members of UNITE Local 2603 at the Kmart distribution center in Greensboro; Scott Breen, member of International Association of Machinist Local 289 in Seattle; and Tony Prince in Cleveland contributed to this column.