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.
Bus drivers in Minneapolis ended their walkout against part-time jobs on October 28, after nearly three weeks on the picket line. Unionists ratified a new contract by a nine-to-one margin.
The contract allows the company to hire part-time drivers up to 24 percent of the workforce. The company sought the ability to hire up to 29 percent whereas the union demanded that it stay at the current 15 percent.
The governor of Minnesota had vowed to break the bus strike. Speaking on October 18, the ninth day of the strike, Gov. Arne Carlson said the walkout must be over by the late-November Thanksgiving holiday. Otherwise he threatened to authorize a fleet of private buses, vans, and taxis to provide "essential service." State officials had said the Minnesota National Guard could be used to protect the scab fleet.
The reaction of many of the 2,100 strikers to the governor's comments was anger. "We're really hacked off," said Sonja, a part-time driver and full-time nursing student, at the wind-swept picket line outside the bus barn near the airport. "How do they expect us to support ourselves, much less raise a family, as part-time workers for the six to eight years it would take to become full- time under their contract?"
Some 350 people participated in a "Walk for Transit" rally in downtown Minneapolis the day after the strike- breaking threat. Pride of service and opposition to the proposed big increase in part-time work were major themes sounded by speakers and participants.
Teamsters Local 120, which represents Ryder car haulers, organized a solidarity rally of 500 people on October 22.
London dock workers rally to defend strike
"You can keep kicking a dog and it'll crawl away from
you, but at some stage the dog'll turn on you," declared
Jimmy Davies. "We're telling Mersey Docks and Harbour
Company our crawling days are through: we're here to stay!"
Davies is a member of the Transport and General Workers
Union (T&GWU). He is also secretary of the Merseyside Dock
Workers Shop Stewards's Committee.
Speaking at a rally on October 21 before some 2,000 people in the centre of Liverpool in North West England, Davies summed up the determination to fight of 350 port workers sacked on September 29 by the Mersey Docks and Harbours Company.
The mass firings followed the refusal of these port workers to cross unofficial picket lines set up by 80 young dockers employed by Torside Ltd. and subcontracted to the port company. The young dockers were dismissed for refusing to work beyond overtime agreements.
Jimmy Nolan, chairperson of the T&GWU National Docks and Waterways Section, chaired the rally and explained how the union learned about a contract in the pipeline for Mersey docks to take in toxic waste shipped from Japan. The Mersey port workers had always refused to handle toxic waste, and this was another reason why the port company wanted the sacked workforce and the union out of the way, Nolan said.
Almost all the unions that participated in the solidarity event have been in recent disputes with their bosses, some involving strike action. The Fire Brigades Union had just suspended a series of 24-hour strike actions against the Merseyside Fire Authority after the bosses agreed to unconditional negotiations.
A mass picket of an estimated 200-300 dockers and their supporters was staged October 23, outside the gates of Seaforth Container Terminal. None of the local workers employed by the Merseyside Docks and Harbours Company who have been scabbing, turned up to challenge the pickets.
General Electric workers strike in Pennsylvania
More than 3,500 members of the United Electrical, Radio
and Machine Workers of America struck General Electric's
big railroad locomotive plant in Erie, Pennsylvania,
October 26.
The main issue in the walkout is outsourcing fabrication of snowplows for some locomotives and simultaneous company plans to eliminate hundreds of jobs. Union officials said the strike is also a protest against broader efforts by GE to outsource many locomotive components to nonuion plants with lower wages and benefits.
The walkout followed an October 6 announcement by GE that it may have to eliminate up to 1,500 jobs at the Erie plant over the next six to nine months. At the same time, GE officials said the company may also lay off several hundred temporary contract workers. The company claimed in an October 6 statement that the announced layoffs are due to cutbacks in orders.
The strikers were scheduled to return to work October 31. One union official said three-day walkouts may be repeated in coming weeks if bargaining with management doesn't produce results satisfying to union memers.
Michael Pennock, member of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 4-618 in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Tim Rigby, member of T&GWU in Manchester, England, contributed to this column.