LIVERPOOL, England - Dock workers here voted with a massive show of hands "to remain in dispute until we get a resolution" at their weekly mass meeting May 17.

The meeting heard from delegates who had traveled around the country and the world. Bob Ritchie reported he had addressed all the dockers at the Atlantic Containers Line terminal in Gothenburg, Sweden. "Their leadership will recommend action" on May 21, he said.

During the week, national conferences of two UK public service unions and a pensioners' gathering had supported the locked-out Liverpool dockers, now in their eighth month of dispute with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. Two weeks earlier, Kevin Robinson reported to the dockers' mass meeting on his participation at the 17th Congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers in Havana. "Kevin was very enthusiastic about Cuba," commented one union member.

At the May 17 meeting, Doreen McNulty of Women on the Waterfront, made up of dockers' relatives, explained how they were traveling around the country to gain support. "Don't underestimate WOW," she said.

A representative of the African Liberation Support Campaign in London pledged to "try to get as many Black people as possible in support of the campaign." Another speaker pointed to a strike by 6,000 Mexican truck drivers at the Los Angeles port in California as part of a worldwide fight for union recognition.

In the coming week the dockers will take their fight to the International Transport Federation based in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting adjourned to participate in a lobby of the Home Office in support of Bayo Omoyiola, who works for the local council and faces deportation.

Cafeteria strikers win support at GM plant
OSHAWA, Ontario - Sixty-five cafeteria workers are into the fifth week of their strike at the sprawling GM truck and car assembly plant in this town near Toronto. The members of Local 414 of the Retail Wholesale Canada Division of the United Steelworkers of America, who work at the Versa Service Cafeterias, have won solidarity from auto production and other workers in the area. The unionists, most of whom are women, are carrying out their first strike ever.

At a May 15 solidarity picket of 35 in front of the GM truck plant, Local 414 chairperson Edith Pike explained that the company had refused to talk to the strikers since they walked out April 19. After a four-year wage freeze, Versa Services bosses are demanding another three-year freeze and that workers pay for 50 percent of current benefits.

"They thought we were just a bunch of women that wouldn't strike," said striker Jeanette Beaman, who has worked as a cafeteria worker for 23 years.

Beaman reported that four of the seven cafeterias were shut down completely and none were operating on the midnight shift. Managers are trying to keep things going. "We had a 100 percent strike vote," she said.

The strikers have been picketing at a number of gates each day, holding up tractor trailers delivering "just-in-time" auto and truck parts.

"Some lines in the plant have been slowed down," said Rob, a Canadian Auto Workers member in the GM paint shop, who turned out to the solidarity picket to support his wife and the other strikers.

Massachusetts gas workers fight lockout
BOSTON - Members of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 12004 at Commonwealth Gas (COMGas) in eastern Massachusetts have been locked out since March 31, after they overwhelmingly voted down a concession contract. Only two of the 372 members voted in favor of the proposal, which included more than 50 takeback demands.

One key issue is the company's demand to use outside contractors on live gas mains. The workers view this as a serious threat to union jobs, which have already declined 35 percent since 1990, due to a combination of crew-cutting, meter automation, and the use of subcontractors on service lines and on digging and laying pipe.

The unionists say this is also a question of safety. On May 10, the Westborough town water department hit a live gas main that COMGas management personnel had assured them wasn't there. Over 100 residents were evacuated as gas bubbled up for over an hour. Two weeks earlier, inexperienced contractors used as scabs, dug four holes in a newly paved street in Worcester looking for a leak. It took them six or seven hours to fix it.

Serviceman and union spokesman Bob Franke said that other important takebacks include the introduction of a two-tier wage system which they believe would divide and weaken the union, a 15 percent co-payment of health insurance premiums - on top of other serious health-care concessions in the last contract - and transfers from one job-reporting location to another on 24 hours' notice, increasing the commute by up to two hours each way.

A series of successful rallies have drawn large turnouts of union members, as well as support from other unions. especially other USWA locals that organize workers at Boston Gas and Bay State Gas, both of which had strikes of several months' duration in the past few years.

12,000 teachers march to state gov't in Sydney
SYDNEY, Australia - As part of an April 23 one-day strike by New South Wales teachers, 12,000 marched on the state Parliament in Sydney to demand a 12 percent raise over two years without cuts in working conditions. The strike was the first joint action ever organized by the NSW Teachers' Federation, which organizes public school teachers, and the NSW Independent Education Union, which organizes teachers in Catholic and independent schools.

The April 23 strike followed a March 7 one-day strike that included a mass meeting of 2,500 Teachers' Federation members at Sydney Town Hall, and a March 20 half-day strike. The state Labor government has responded by offering a 7.1 percent raise that would include big cuts to sick leave and larger class sizes. Further strike action is planned.

Contributors to this week's column were: Debbie Delange, member of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union in Manchester, England; Sylvie Charbin and John Steele, members of International Association of Machinists Local 2113 in Toronto; Sarah Ullman, member of United Transportation Union Local 1473 in Boston; and Doug Cooper, in Sydney.  
 
 
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