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.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Some 950 members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1155 went on strike here July 22, one day after they voted overwhelmingly to reject a final contract offer by Pemco Aeroplex. The strike halted the overhauling and refurbishing of KC-135 tankers and C- 130 transport aircraft. Pemco's primary clients are the U.S. and other governments.

Unionists said that Pemco's final offer to combine and reduce 61 job classifications down to 31 would result in fewer workers being forced to perform more work, with no guarantees of employment for those displaced from their classifications. The workers also cited Pemco's insistence on no general increase in wages or benefits for two years and the company's proposal to reopen the contract at the end of the second year.

In the weeks leading up to the strike vote, discussion about Pemco's concession demands spread throughout the plant. The workers organized a show of solidarity July 19. Several hundred UAW members wearing their union T-shirts and stickers gathered outside the hangar bays at the start of the lunch break. At the end of the first shift the same day, hundreds of workers assembled at the union hall until late in the night.

About 30 workers set up a picket line at midnight after the strike vote, including some retirees. By 5:00 a.m., the number had increased to 200.

Hotel strikers defeat injunction and fight on
TORONTO - After six and a half weeks on the picket line, the 600 cooks, bellhops, housekeepers, and other workers on strike against the union-busting drive of the owners of the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel are as determined as ever. The strike, which began June 10, is seen by workers as an important test of the Ontario government's new anti-union laws, which permit bosses to use scabs during strikes. Since the strike began 200 scabs, hired before the strike and herded by dozens of specially hired security guards, have been living and working in the hotel. The strikers are maintaining 24-hour picket lines.

Over the July 13-14 weekend, one of the hotel's busiest during the summer season, the bosses got a 48-hour temporary court injunction limiting the number pickets to seven, and preventing them from slowing traffic in and out of the hotel. The court action angered the strikers.

"We should march on Queen's Park and let the government know how we feel about other people taking our jobs," said Virla Ryan, a steward at the hotel for 21 years.

Over 70 strikers, including a number of their children, packed the courthouse on July 18 in a display of solidarity against the hotel bosses' further attempt to win a permanent anti-picketing injunction. For more than an hour the company lawyer argued that the picket line protocol established between the Metro Toronto cops and the union - permitting the stopping of vehicles for up to 15 minutes - was illegal. Pickets could only communicate passively with picket signs, he said. The court refused to grant the injunction, however.

"We are having an impact because everyone is united. We all face the same thing so we're strong," said striker Kuya Gwaan, during a coffee break at the court hearing.

Following the decision the strikers reinforced their picket lines. The walls of a trailer at the strikers' command center a few blocks from the hotel have become a bulletin board displaying strike support letters and newspaper clippings on the strike. Notices report that $188 was collected for strikers at the recent Gay Pride march, and other $215 at the June 24 Peterborough one-day strike and protest against the anti-labor policies and social service cutbacks of the Ontario government.

Montreal strikers fight for union
MONTREAL - "Oh, `Solidarity with Native People!' Welcome," exclaimed Marc-André Lefebvre, as he read the slogan on the T- shirt of one of the Militant reporters who stopped by the picket line. Lefebvre is one of 42 workers on strike against Travail de Signalisation JP since July 10.

These workers install temporary road signs during repairs or traffic rerouting. They are paid CAN$6.50 (US$4.70 ) an hour, must pay for their own gloves, hard hats, and boots, and regularly work 16 hours a day without overtime pay.

Since the beginning of their unionizing drive in September 1995, at least 10 workers have been fired, leading to a reduction in personnel. Michel Nadeau was working with a reduced team when he was seriously injured by a car on the highway last fall.

This strengthened workers' determination to get a union in, according to Gilles Allard, local union president. The workers signed cards with the Confederation of National Trade Unions, and now the unionists are fighting for their first contract.

When workers began the strike by blocking the road in front of the workplace with trucks and road signs, their boss contacted workers at Mole, a company of which he is also the owner. He proposed they replace the strikers, only nine of whom were crossing the line. Mole employees categorically refused to scab and contacted the strikers to express their solidarity.

Bus drivers and other motorists honk their support as they pass the picket line, which is composed of workers from different countries.

Allard said, "This is the first time on strike for most of us. Here the boss acts like a dictator. It's exploitation and a whiff of paternalism. But that's over now. We're fighting till the end." The workers are demanding contract clauses on health and safety, retroactive overtime pay for the past year, and a substantial wage increase.

Sit-in at warehouse demands job protection
PHILADELPHIA - Eight union fighters, members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, ended a five-day sit-in at the Strawbridge & Clothier furniture warehouse here July 17. The workers barricaded themselves inside the building with stacks of Duraflame logs at the close of the Saturday shift after hearing rumors they would be locked out following a stockholders' meeting on Monday. The stockholders were expected to ratify the sale of Strawbridge & Clothier to the May Department Stores Co. in a move that would result in the loss of about 100 jobs for Teamsters from Locals 169, 107, and 929.

"The union has been trying to negotiate and they [the May Department Stores Co.] won't even talk to us," complained warehouse worker John Dumphy. Dumphy was one of some 30 Teamsters and supporters who stood in front of the occupied warehouse to show their solidarity with those inside.

He explained that the local had made numerous concessions in their most recent contract in exchange for assurances that their jobs would be guaranteed until the year 2001. But May Department Stores have said they will not honor these agreements.

"They want to get rid of senior people so that they can hire people out of school for minimum wage," one Teamster said.

UAW members A.D. Thomas and George Williams in Birmingham; John Steele, member of International Association of Machinists Local Lodge 2113 in Toronto; Young Socialists member Christian Cornejo in Montreal; and YS member Rebecca Arenson in Philadelphia contributed to this column.  
 
 
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