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SHAWINIGAN, Quebec - The conflict is heating up between 4,600 members of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) in eastern Canada and Abitibi Consolidated, the world's biggest newsprint producer. Workers at four plants in Ontario, five in Quebec, and two in Newfoundland went on strike June 15 against an attempt by the company to impose negotiations plant by plant as opposed to company-wide.

"If we end up negotiating plant by plant, we're finished," said Réjean Bourbeau, from the Laurentide plant in Grand-Mere, Quebec. "We have to stick together, that's the way we'll win," said Guy Arsenault, from the Iroquois Falls plant in Ontario. This sentiment is broadly reflected among pickets.

On June 22 workers in Ontario reaffirmed their fight by voting 96.4 percent in favor of the strike. The second vote had been imposed by the Ontario Labour Relations Board at the request of the company. The support for the strike expressed in this vote lessens the impact of the second section of the Labour Board ruling, which forces the union to negotiate plant by plant in Ontario. The union has appealed this ruling. However, "because of provincial legislation, the unions are willing to abide by the law and to take as long as it takes to get a fair settlement," said Denis Bertrand, president of the CEP Local 109 in Iroquois Falls.

At the Iroquois Falls union meeting June 21, workers learned about an attempt by the company to get contractors to finish off a new landfill site. The next morning roughly 100 workers mobilized to stop the contractors at two plant gates. The contractors respected the picket lines, as do members of three other unions who work at the Iroquois Falls plant.

On June 26 the company announced that two of its five struck plants in Quebec, the Wayagamack plant in Trois- Rivieres and the plant in Chandler, might be shut down permanently if the strike continues. The union locals then held two meetings and the strike continues. Lucien Poitras, with 30 years in the plant said, "We are all ready to go back but not on our knees.

Machinists at Northwest discuss contract offer
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Some 27,000 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) who work at Northwest Airlines will vote on a proposed contract settlement July 29.

A tentative agreement between Northwest and the IAM was announced June 16 after 20 months of government-mediated negotiations.

Press reports have touted the contract as an "industry leader" with "milestone" gains for workers, pointing to a few proposals: a 14 percent pay raise over five years; five "highlights" are a 14 percent pay raise over four years; a 50 percent increase in pension benefits; a signing bonus; a "no-layoff" clause if Northwest merges with other airlines; and a doubling of pay premiums for licensed mechanics to $1.50 per hour for each of two job-related license held.

Many Machinists, however, point to the shortcomings of this contract proposal, which if accepted would expire in 2002. After giving back $897 million in concessions in the previous contract, this offer would mean that raises in base pay between 1991 and 2002 would average just 1.5 percent a year. The "no layoff" clause applies only to full-time workers on the payroll before Oct. 1, 1996. Some 1,500 full- time workers and numerous part-time workers would be not be covered.

Among concessions sought by Northwest is the right to work part-time employees up to 31 hours per week, just one shift shy of full-time status, without medical insurance or any other benefits except for premium pay for five holidays a year.

There are ongoing discussions among mechanics, ground operations workers, and ticket agents about whether more could be won with continued resistance. Since the contract expired in October 1996 machinists have organized many forms of protest including periodic "work to rule" campaigns and refusing voluntary overtime. These actions have resulted in a drop in profits for Northwest. In June, financial analysts estimate NWA lost as much as $60 million.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul - the site of Northwest's corporate headquarters - winning back the jobs of nine workers fired in the course of this labor dispute remains a priority for the Machinists. IAM member Jeff Jones, a cleaner at Northwest there, reports, "Many workers here are wearing buttons that say `Vote No' in view of the company's stance against reinstating the fired workers and out of conviction that we deserve more and could get more than the company is offering."

Meanwhile, the Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) campaigning in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and elsewhere to represent mechanics and cleaners at Northwest has sought to link dissatisfaction with the contract proposal to dissatisfaction with the IAM. AMFA is an outfit that seeks to organize aircraft mechanics away from the IAM's multi-job airline group to its own narrower-based and craft-oriented job trust setup.

Negotiations between Northwest and the Airline Pilots Professional Association (ALPA) and the Teamsters Union organized -Flight Attendants drag on with no progress announced.

UK rail workers hold second work stoppage
LONDON - "All of our workmates are out here," said John O'Connor, a track maintainer on picket duty near Wimbledon rail station in London. He picketed every morning of the June 29 - July 3 strike by 9,000 track and signal workers organized by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT).

Also picketing was Richard Garde, a track maintainer and assistant secretary of the Wimbledon RMT branch. He said, "The media has tried to twist the issues in this strike as though we're out for a pay rise, but really its about conditions and terms of work." Their employers, who bought into the formerly state-run rail network in February 1996, have put forward a "restructuring" package. On the surface it looks like a pay rise, but in return there are cuts in overtime payments and benefits. "It's a pay cut really," O'Connor said.

The first phase of the strike, June 19-22, mainly hit special engineering projects to renew and repair track and signaling equipment. This time major disruption was averted by bosses along with temporary contractors and some strike breakers covering repairs.

INS arrests farm workers following union vote
PHILADELPHIA - Some 30 agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and 10 Pennsylvania State Troopers staged an early morning raid on the Blue Mountain Mushroom Company in Reading, Pennsylvania, June 19.

The cops interviewed all of the approximately 100 workers on site and arrested 76 workers who could not produce documents. Forty-one workers were taken to the York County Prison, the Berks County Prison, and the Berks County Youth Center. The others were released pending further legal proceedings because of "health problems or small children to care for," according to immigration cops.

The Immigration department told the Reading Eagle/Times that the raid was "prompted by two anonymous complaints." But a press statement released June 23 by the Mushroom Workers Council of Reading in support of the Blue Mountain Workers Committee blasted the raid "as retaliation against workers in their effort to organize."

The Workers Committee at Blue Mountain had recently won a union representation election by an 80-to-40 vote. They were waiting for the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to compel the owners of the plant to negotiate a contract with union organizers.

The Farmworkers Support Committee (CATA) denounced the INS raid in a press release, saying it "will have a chilling effect on workers' will to act collectively, and represents how a government agency can be used to break workers' struggles while favoring employers' abusive policies toward their workers."

Sweden: union official forced to resign for strike
GOTHENBURG, Sweden -Workers at the FIX factory here took strike action June 24-26 over wages. FIX produces locks and security systems, and the nearly 200 workers are members of the Metalworkers union. At the plant gate, workers explained what happened. "In the local negotiations the company wanted to give much more to some than to others," Bruno Bran, a spokesperson for the strikers, said. "We wanted to secure a general raise for everyone of 2.50 kroner [35 cents] and a smaller sum for additional individual raises. The company wanted it the other way around." Workers said they receive well below the average wage of metalworkers in the region. To put pressure on negotiations between the company and the union, workers sat down for three hours on June 24, two hours the following day, and all day June 26. "I've worked here for 23 years and we've never had a strike before," Bran said.

After the first strike day in Gotenburg, workers at another plant in the same group of companies, ASSA, in the town of Eskilstuna, 150 kilometers east of Stockholm, also went out on strike for half a day. On June 26 the workers at the plant in Eskilstuna voted to accept a slightly improved agreement between the company and the local.

These were wild-cat strikes. Due to antiunion legislation in Sweden, industrial action of any kind is prohibited once central negotiations between the different national union federations and their respective employer federations are closed. Local negotiations take place under an "obligation of work peace." The company threatened to sue the workers in labor court and have them fined. This legislation also makes it illegal for union locals to lead or support a strike. If they do, fines are heavy.

On June 29 workers assembled at 7:00 a.m. to discuss their next move. They were then informed that negotiations had been taken out of the hands of the local and taken over by the Metalworkers union and Industry federation, the employers' organization, nationally. Two days later, these bodies agreed on a settlement. Wages will be set according to the company's original bid. FIX workers will put in extra hours to compensate for the time lost to the strikes. And the chairman of the union local was forced to resign at the company's insistence. The union chairman "has been too passive in trying to get his members back to production," said company chairman Stellan Svensson. "Our confidence in him is undermined and it would have affected the other members if he hadn't resigned."

Michel Dugré, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees in Montreal; Katy LeRougetel and Guy Tremblay, members of the United Steelworkers of America in Toronto; Mary Martin, a member of the IAM in Washington, D.C.; Shellia Kennedy and Pete Clifford, members of the RMT in London; Pete Seidman, a member of the United Auto Workers in Newark, Delaware; and Lars Erlandsson and Anita Ostling in Stockholm contributed to this column.  
 
 
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