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.

NEW YORK - On August 24, union negotiators here announced a settlement in the strike by 6,000 hospital workers. The members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 144, who walked out June 27, held off most of the concessions demanded by the employers and won some of their demands.

Hospital management - organized in the League of Voluntary Hospitals - pushed a contract that would have slashed vacation and sick time by 50 percent, lowered wages for new hires by as much as 35 percent and created an open-ended two-tier with new employees never reaching current union scale, and denied some pension payments. The bosses broke off negotiations July 3 after the striking orderlies, nurses' aides, and hospital clerks rejected the proposed management contract.

Strikers remained firm, however, maintaining round-the-clock picket lines and winning solidarity from other workers. Contract talks resumed by mid-August.

Morale outside the Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, for example, was high even after a few union members crossed picket lines. "Management will demand even more if we give in now," one striker told the Militant August 23. "One woman who crossed the picket line has already been suspended for five days for reading a newspaper while supposedly on duty... If we were to give in other unions would have a harder time."

Union negotiators approved an agreement that includes no cuts in sick time or vacation. The accord does institute a two-tier wage scale, but of a more limited scope than management demanded. New hires will get 15 percent less than top pay the first two years of the contract and 10 percent less the third year, reaching current union scale in 36 months. The hospitals will begin paying into the pension fund the third year of employment.

The union had demanded wage increases of some 3 percent per year during the three-year contract. According to SEIU negotiators, the new contract includes instead yearly lump sum payments of $750 for current union members. The union reportedly won an increase in management contributions to health benefits from 12 percent to 15 percent of gross wages.

Seafood workers fight for contract in New Zealand
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - Fifty United Food, Beverage and General Workers Union members at Pacifica seafoods here are waging a determined contract fight. First locked out several weeks ago for holding rolling stoppages, they returned to work as negotiations between union and employer representatives resumed. After the talks broke down they instituted a go-slow, producing "quality and not quantity" according to their union organizer. On August 19 the company locked them out again, claiming "disruptive practices."

A small minority of workers remain outside the union on individual contracts. The company has set up a night shift to train new hires.

"I want a guaranteed 40 hours a week work, and I haven't had a wage rise for 3 1/2 years" said one worker to the city's major daily newspaper. The workers are either "shuckers," who remove the flesh of the shellfish from their shells, and packers. Working at high speed on a bonus system, the shuckers can make relatively good money, but the packers, who have to keep pace, generally make less than NZ$9 (US$6.21) an hour. "We are fighting for the packers" said a shucker to the Militant. Both categories of worker mingle on the picket line, and their mood is upbeat and confident.

The workers have mounted daily picket lines to publicize their demands. The pickets are also aimed at the minority of workers who still enter the plant - some of whom are newly- hired trainees. The pickets have scored some notable successes - workers have joined the union after discussions with picketers, and people turning up for job interviews have also stopped to hear the union case. Militant reporters on the picket line saw two Asian interviewees who talked to the pickets, and said they were disgusted with the company's behavior.

The union has offered to resume negotiations but at the time of writing the company has not replied.

Puerto Rico school workers demand raise
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -About 50 non-teaching employees of the Education Department picketed the central offices of the department at lunch time on August 20. The picket line was to demand higher salaries and better working conditions. The Teachers Federation organized the lunch time picket as well as pickets that were held later in the day at the department's regional offices in various cities throughout this U.S. colony.

The Education Department has 25,000 people employed as cooks, drivers, technicians and security guards. About 21,000 of these people make between the current minimum wage of $4.25 per hour and the new minimum wage, effective in 1997, of $5.15 per hour. The union is demanding a monthly salary of $100 above the minimum wage.

The Teachers Federation, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers in the United States, only began to organize non-teaching workers in the Education Department three years ago. In Puerto Rico most teachers are members of the Federation or the Teachers Association but they have no right to collective bargaining. The Association, which is affiliated with the National Education Association in the United States, operates in Puerto Rico as a professional association, while the Federation operates as a union. Even without the right to collective bargaining the Federation has called strikes that have shut the school system down.

On August 25 the Federation held an assembly of non-teaching workers that was attended by several hundred people. The purpose of the assembly was to map out future plans. The assembly was held on the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico.

Jorge Ramirez is a cook at a technical school in the Río Piedras section of San Juan. He works six hours per day and takes home $484 per month. As a temporary employee he does not have benefits such as health insurance. "If the Teachers Federation is going to struggle for us as they have for the teachers," said Ramirez, "this will be good."

Susan LaMont member of United Steelworkers Local 2122 in Fairfield, Alabam; Jason Corley in New York; Mike Peters member of the Engineers Union in Christchurch, New Zealand; and Ron Richards in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this column.  
 
 
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