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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - A successful picket line/news conference was held in front of a Crown gas station in Fairfield, Alabama, November 12, to support the locked-out Crown refinery workers' fight. The event was covered by three TV stations and drew enthusiastic support from passers-by at the very busy shopping area.
Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA); United Food and Commercial Workers and the Retail, Wholesale and Distributive Workers; the Molders union; the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; and other activists supporting the fight of the locked-out workers at Crown Petroleum's Houston refinery participated.
The action came after a month of work in Alabama by Danny Duncan, a representative of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 4-227. He has been speaking about their two-and-a-half- year fight to win a contract and get their jobs back at Crown, as well as the union's antidiscrimination suit against the company. Duncan has been welcomed at union meetings and political events in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Gadsden.
Peterbilt workers hold off company assault
NASHVILLE, Tennessee -Workers at Peterbilt Motors' truck
factory, members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1832
approved a new contract November 24 by a vote of 740 to 187.
The truck workers struck May 3, making the seven-month strike the longest of the six strikes in 25 years by workers at the Peterbilt assembly plant outside Nashville. Only 15 of the 1,200 striking UAW members crossed the picket line. Peterbilt is owned by PACCAR, Inc., the second largest manufacturer of heavy trucks in the world. PACCAR also owns Kenworth Trucks.
As the first weeks of the strike turned into months, the strike changed from a seemingly ordinary fight for a new contract into a battle by the workers against a head-on company assault on the union.
Four months into the strike the UAW offered to return to work without a contract and continue negotiations. The company refused the union's offer. Instead, the company hired some 700 strikebreakers and cranked production up to 36 trucks a day, compared to 54 before the strike.
The union declared the strike a lockout and filed unfair labor practice charges against Peterbilt with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB found the company guilty and scheduled a hearing for January 1999 where the company could have been held liable for back pay to the strikers since the beginning of the lockout in September.
As the strikers held their ground, Peterbilt was losing millions of dollars in unfilled truck orders. The company had record profits in 1997 and the truck market has been booming this year. By November, Peterbilt was forced to negotiate a new contract with the workers.
During the strike, increased pensions and retirement benefits emerged as the key contract issues. The new 44-month contract includes increased pension payments and substantial cuts in health insurance costs for retired workers. For example, health insurance costs for a retiree and spouse will go from $519 per month to $140. The agreement also makes it easier to retire at age 62 without significant pension reduction. The contract also includes a 12.5 percent pay raise over the life of the contract.
Along with the contract gains, the workers took some casualties in the form of 30-day to six-month suspensions of some workers. But all of the strikers fired by the company for alleged "misconduct" will return to work.
Outside their contract meeting the UAW members' opinions reflected the widespread view that the workers had stood up to the company's assault on their union. The spirit of the strikers was expressed well by June Stalter. "I got married the day before we went on strike. I had to put off my honeymoon to walk the picket line," she said. "Tomorrow is the scabs' last day and we'll be there to watch them leave."
Jay Hunter is one of the workers suspended for 30 days. He started at the truck plant in 1969 when the plant opened. According to Hunter, he cussed out a scab in a restaurant parking lot three miles from the plant. Strom Engineering, the private scab-herding outfit hired by Peterbilt during the strike, happened to be on the scene and got the confrontation on film.
"It was a set up deal," said Hunter, adding: "A 30-day suspension is nothing compared to seven months. I would've bet my home that we wouldn't have been out this long. I'm proud of the young people in this strike. We're about as strong a 1,200 people as you could find."
One of the younger workers is Bounphet Phet, one of ten workers from Laos who has worked in the plant for less than five years. "The strike was tough on us," said Phet. "We didn't expect to be out for so long. But we have to stick with the union." Peterbilt is Phet's first union job and he was proud of the fact that no Laotian worker crossed the picket line.
Some strikers felt the company was being let off the hook.
"I feel like we could've done a little bit better on certain issues," said Tony Sanders. "We did damn good as far as retirement and insurance benefits. But I feel like we're owed back pay since the lockout September 10. I feel like all the brother and sisterhood should've been returned to work, the charges dropped, and nobody reprimanded for conduct on the picket line."
Hunter added, "I think we got all we're gonna get, but this will leave a bitter taste in people's mouths."
The truck workers fight got support from other unions. UAW Local 1832 president Richard Burnett said that union members and others reached out to truck drivers at truck stops and truck shows to inform potential Peterbilt customers that the plant was on strike and the trucks were being built by scabs.
After the contract ratification vote, striker B.G. Bowling said, "The biggest victory was the solidarity that came out of the strike. They didn't bust our union and they asked us to come back!"
Betty Bates expressed the view of many. "We fought for a lot of good reasons. We might not have gotten everything we asked for, but we're going back together and we still have our union. And we're going back a stronger union."
Hotel workers march in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO - In the largest demonstration to date, hotel
workers and their supporters rallied in front of the downtown
Marriott Hotel November 17, demanding a contract at one of
seven nonunion hotels here.
During the evening rush hour, more than 800 chanted, "Contract now!" "We got the power, union power!" as passing city bus drivers honked their approval. The event drew workers from many Bay Area unions who demonstrated their solidarity with members of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 2 (HERE) in their two-year battle with one of the largest U.S. hotel chains.
The Marriott - which opened in 1989 - refuses to accept a contract for more than 1,000 janitors, housekeepers, and maintenance workers; a largely immigrant, multi-national, multi- lingual workforce. Workers won union representation in 1996. Since then, they have been fighting for a contract on a par with the city-wide agreement at the other union hotels. HERE's demands include seniority rights, overtime pay, and a pension plan.
During this two-year struggle, workers have organized regular pickets in front of the hotel and periodically called larger mobilizations drawing workers from unions throughout the Bay Area.
Transit workers, Machinists, Steelworkers, flight attendants, farm workers, Teamsters, nurses, longshoremen, and members of many other unions took part in the action. NABET-CWA Local 51 Workers from KGO-TV Channel 7 joined in with picket signs from their afternoon rally. National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians union has been locked out of the ABC- owned stations since November 3.
HERE members garnered support through speaking and distributing multilingual - Chinese, Spanish, and English - leaflets at union meetings and other gatherings.
Susan LaMont; Rich Stuart, member of the USWA; and Ronald Martin, member of International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 108, all in Birmingham, Alabama; Osborne Hart, member of United Transportation Union Local 239, and Larry Lane, member of International Association of Machinist Local 1781, in San Francisco contributed to this column.