BY HILDA CUZCO
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.

ST. CATHARINES, Ontario -More than 4,000 unionists and others gathered here May 1 for the 10th in a series of Days of Action organized by Ontario unions protesting the continuing cuts to health, education, and social services by provincial premier Michael Harris.

Pickets shut down all three General Motors plants beginning with the night shift going in on April 30. "Union people went around and shut gates, chaining them so people couldn't get in or out," said Ivan Grant, a GM employee picketing the downtown post office. He told the Militant that the main GM plant in St. Catharines had over 8,900 employees at its peak in the 1980s, but that number has shrunk to around 4,000. GM plans to reduce it further to 2,500 by 1999, he said.

City transit and most municipal offices were also picketed out. While foremen at the GM plant had been threatening workers with disciplinary or other consequences for participation in the day, most employers did not confront the unions' actions with much resistance.

Speakers at the rally included representatives of union and community groups, as well as the brother of Dudley George, a native activist killed by the cops.

Toronto drywall and trim workers strike over wages
TORONTO - Flying picket squads of striking drywallers and trim carpenters have shut down work on more than 200 unionized residential construction sites in the Toronto area, including at 30 high rise apartment and condominium projects. Militant correspondents visited the picket line May 14 at a major apartment construction site in north Toronto. A few trim carpenters were on the line. No work was being done on the site. Earlier in the week 80 pickets had turned up to stop work on the project.

The strike began May 1, when 2,000 drywallers who are members of Drywall Local 675 downed their tools against the construction bosses and members of the Interior Systems Contract Association (ISCA). The drywallers are members of the Residential Alliance of Building Trades Unions (RABTU), which includes union locals representing plumbers, sheet metal, iron workers, siding installers, trim carpenters, roofers, and painters. All the contracts in residential construction expired April 30.

For the first week of the strike there were no picket lines. To put more pressure on the ISCA bosses, 300 trim carpenters, members of Carpenters Local 27, went on strike and set up roving picket lines with the drywallers on May 11. The strikers aim to tie up residential construction throughout the area. All the union locals of the RABTU have agreed to honor picket lines.

The main issue in the escalating strike is wages. The construction bosses have labeled the strikers' demands as "outrageous and greedy," claiming the workers want a 41 percent raise over three years, and that this would raise the cost of a house by $1,000. The bosses say they are offering a 7.5 percent raise.

"They are lying," said one picket who didn't want his name used. "You can't figure it like that. Drywallers work on a piece rate. We haven't had a raise in our rate for seven years. Right now we get 14 cents a square foot. We are demanding a rate raise to 17.5 cents. Our demands would only increase the cost of a house by $150."

The average rate for the trim carpenters amounts to about $24.50 an hour. They are demanding an increase that would bring the average to $29 per hour over a three-year contract. Pickets say that housing designs have become more complex, with higher ceilings and other changes that slow down how much drywall can be put up in day by an individual worker. This cuts back on income. They also point out that they don't get a guaranteed 40 hours work each week. If they don't work because of the weather, they don't get paid. They can count on work about eight months out of the year.

It takes about five months to build a house. If the strike continues, at least 3,700 homes with closing dates around May 19 will not be finished. The stakes are high for the construction bosses since housing starts have increased by about 11 percent this year.

Companies refuse to talk with striking boat pilots
ST. LOUIS - A strike by towboat pilots - members of the Pilots Agree Association - on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, western rivers, and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway entered its fifth week May 9 with the continued refusal of shipping companies to negotiate. Numerous barge accidents have occurred in the course of the strike, which began April 4, as relatively inexperienced or overworked pilots replace strikers. One incident has triggered an FBI investigation resulting in a "finding" of sabotage.

"Pilots Agree Association invited 98 towing companies to meet with its elected officers to discuss issues of safety, dangerously downsized crews and inadequate payscales. No one replied," wrote Fred Hunter, secretary-treasurer of Pilots Agree, in a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, May 2.

Pilots Agree, which has a membership of about 1,200 towboat pilots and captains, are among some 3,000 who work towing barges filled with coal, grain, and other bulk cargo. Crews also include a number of deck hands many of whom belong to the Seafarers International Union.

According to Pilots Agree spokespeople quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, river pilots are under increased pressure because companies are requiring them to push longer strings of barges, making navigation more difficult. At the same time Coast Guard operating rules have become more strict thus jeopardizing the pilots' licenses and jobs in the event of an accident.

Pilots typically earn $50,000 a year according to the union. But to reach that level of pay, a pilot often works 12-hour days for 30 days straight while the boat remains in continuous operation with a second pilot. After a 30-day stint on a boat, a pilot usually has 30 days off.

Pilots Agree is not recognized by any of the towing companies as a bargaining agent nor does the new organization have a strike fund. Strikers are living off their savings and some of the strikers have been summarily fired by the companies. The association has filed complaints for this practice with the National Labor Relations Board.

A string of barge accidents along the upper Mississippi River have occurred in the period since the strike began. The most extensive involved a chain-reaction April 24 dislodging of 137 barges moored just south of the Anheuser- Busch brewery in St. Louis. The barges careened down the Mississippi River for 11 miles doing about $3 million in damage according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch report.

The FBI investigated this incident, claiming it found evidence of sabotage to the mooring line of one of the barges, according to press reports. The FBI said it is looking at suspects from either the union or company camps. Hunter, of Pilots Agree, was quoted in the local press on the FBI finding stating, "If a shore line had been cut a whole fleet of barges would drift downstream. This tells me that an inexperienced deck hand tied a single barge off improperly and it rocked loose."

Pittsburgh home care workers walk out
PITTSBURGH - Twenty-nine members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23 are on strike against the St. Paul of the Cross Manor Personal Care Home here in Pittsburgh. The unionists -nurses aids, dietary and maintenance workers, and housekeepers - are on strike for a contract and because of unfair labor practices.

Most are classified as part-time but end up working at least 40-hour weeks. Part-timers do not receive health-care benefits for themselves or their families. One dietary worker explained that a full-time nurse's aid is married to a supervisor and they get full medical benefits for themselves and their families, while the company will not do the same for other full-timers. She added, "scheduling is based on favoritism and one woman who couldn't work second shift because of a child-care conflict was fired."

Another worker told Militant reporters that one of the strikers left her eye glasses in the facility and called to get them. She was fired over the phone and told that any personal property left on the premises belonged to the company.

Wages start at $5.15 and hour, and one housekeeper told us that she was making that amount after four years because her starting wage at that time was $4.40 an hour. The strikers said they want to provide the home's residents, most of whom are elderly, with the best possible care, but feel that what they are fighting for is fair treatment and dignity as workers.

N.Y. taxi drivers protest new city regulations
NEW YORK - A yellow taxi was a rare sight on the streets here May 13. Reacting to new legislation proposed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration, New York City taxi cab drivers conducted a one-day strike. Participation in the work stoppage was high. Only eight of the 215 cabs that are normally leased from Midtown Operating Corporation for a morning shift went out, for instance.

The drivers are protesting new rules that would increase their insurance liability, require drug testing for new drivers at their own expense, and increase fines to up to $1,000 for various infractions.

Mayor Giuliani denounced the strike as "a demonstration for the purpose of being able to drive recklessly." Driver Javid Tariq told the New York Times, "These rules are not so much prosafety as antidriver. It is easy to be antidriver because people do not consider us human."

The United Yellow Cab Driver's Association has called for a demonstration May 21 to oppose the new regulations.

Karen Hunter, a member of the Young Socialists in St. Catharines; John Steele, a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) in Toronto; Jim Garrision, a member of the United Auto Workers in St. Louis; Edwin Fruit, a member of the IAM in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania; and Nancy Rosenstock, a member of the IAM in New York, contributed to this column.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home