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BROOKLYN, New York - After working without a contract since Oct. 2, 1998, some 280 workers organized by International Longshoreman's Association Local 1814 struck the Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn June 15. Another 30 workers at the plant, organized by two other unions, are honoring the picket lines.
"This is not just about wages, it's about jobs," said Charles Milan, a packaging mechanic and shop steward with 35 years at the plant. "They want to do what they did to Silverton refinery workers in England. They want to do us what they did to the Staley workers."
Domino, which is owned by British company Tate & Lyle PLC, plans to shut down the filter house where raw sugar is processed, cutting 100 jobs, Milan said.
The company also proposes to eliminate three holidays; put in a no-strike clause; install staggered work weeks, which means straight time pay for weekend work; get rid of guaranteed hours per year; have unlimited contracting-out of work; and have the ability to reopen the contract at any time. The bosses are also pressing to introduce part-time workers at lower pay, combine jobs to eliminate more positions, and attack seniority rights.
The average seniority at the plant is about 20 years. The average wage is around $15, topping out at $18. Since December, the company has drastically cut the hours of many production workers. Some worked massive overtime the year before, from two or three shifts a week, workers said.
Production is still going on, but instead of 100 trucks of sugar going out a day, workers report only 10-12 vehicles leave the plant. Those trucks, driven by nonunion drivers, are escorted by private security goons with cameras. Some drivers have taken aim at the picket lines, pickets said.
The scabs inside the plant are bosses both from the local plant and from Domino's other refineries in Baltimore and New Orleans.
Workers said they viewed Tate & Lyle, which has shut two other Domino Sugar plants in Boston and Philadelphia, as being on a union-busting drive. Tate & Lyle locked out 760 corn- processing workers at A.E. Staley in Decatur, Illinois, in 1993 during contract negotiations. A number of Domino workers said they remembered the lockout and had participated in solidarity activities.
Workers in Brooklyn have been through two other strikes in recent years - one in 1989 that lasted three months and one in 1992-93 that lasted more than five months.
About 150 workers held an expanded picketline on June 21. The strikers are asking people to boycott Domino Sugar.
Iowa paperworkers strike against Georgia-Pacific
FORT DODGE, Iowa - At midnight June 19, production workers
at Georgia-Pacific's gypsum wallboard plant near here walked
out on strike.
The 76 members of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) Local 7-0503 had worked under an extended contract since June 1 while negotiations continued. The last offer from the company was rejected June 19 by a vote of 42-28.
Three of the main issues, according to pickets, are the retiree health plan, pensions, and getting back all the 10 paid holidays they lost in the last contract six years ago. The company wants more flexibility in making job assignments.
Workers now get only Christmas, New Years, and Thanksgiving off along with two floating holidays and vacation days. On top of that, if their relief doesn't come in, workers can be forced to work up to 16 hours to cover the shift.
Larry Prewitt, with six years in the plant, explained he's been working seven days a week since he started. "We used to have 10 paid holidays off," Prewitt explained, "but the company changed the wording in the last contract and won an arbitration ruling that says as long as we got holiday pay, they could schedule us for work. We want those seven days back."
Pickets knew of one worker who already had 600 hours of overtime for the year, an average of 23 hours per week. When was Prewitt hired, there were 109 workers in the plant. "We put out more now with 30 fewer workers," he said. "The company put in some new equipment, but they forced more overtime on us too."
Militant reporters noticed workers from other companies in the Fort Dodge area stopping by the picket line. One was a young worker from a nonunion flooring contractor. Later, a woman shouted out "United Auto Workers Local 442 is with you" as she drove by. Earlier in the evening, strikers related how a carload from a nearby nonunion wallboard plant also offered their solidarity.
Picketing is organized seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Gypsum has been mined here for decades. Georgia-Pacific bought this plant in 1965, but it has been in operation since 1908. This was the first strike in memory of the unionists on the picket line.
Besides the holidays, strikers want a better pension and a retiree health plan. Unionists report that they get $19 per year of service, and if workers retire before they are eligible for Medicare, the whole pension goes to cover health insurance payments.
The company has proposed increasing the pension by $1 for each year of the six-year contract, but the strikers don't think this is enough.
Production is being done by bosses from other Georgia- Pacific plants. Strikers didn't think much production was getting done because of the age of the equipment. Prewitt pointed out the small number of tractor trailers in the parking lot. "Normally 60 trucks a day leave here, but we saw only three go out this evening."
PACE workers protest suspension for picketing
NEW CASTLE, Delaware - Thirty members of PACE Local 2-743
held an informational picket at the entrance to the Printpack
plant here after working a 12-hour midnight shift May 21.
Looking ahead to the expiration of their current contract at the end of December, the unionists wanted to show the company they are already united in protest against recent contract violations, including the use of temporary personnel and overtime abuses. "It's almost like a prison in here," said union president Matt ÓBrien.
Following the picket, the company suspended union vice- president Pat Taylor for a day after a salaried employee entering the plant said he "felt threatened" when he passed Taylor on the picket line. The local presented taped evidence that these charges are false and is demanding that Taylor receive back pay. ÓBrien says a number of union members told him after the picket line that they felt "proud, they'd never seen this done before, that we're standing up for what we want."
PACE members at Printpack also recently organized solidarity with a strike by members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) at the Chloramone Corp. in nearby Delaware City.
Aluminum can workers resist deeper two-tier pay
LAWRENCE, Massachusetts - On an average day, the 135
members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM)
at Crown, Cork, and Seal here produced 4.8 million aluminum
cans before they voted overwhelmingly to go on strike last
spring. For five weeks, production lines have been silent. Not
one member of IAM Local Lodge 1271, which organizes the plant,
has crossed the picket line since they walked out May 7.
The Machinists' contract expired April 1, and strikers describe a "take-it-or-leave-it" attitude from the company, which presented a contract demanding concessions. The second set of proposals presented to the union was worse, according to pickets. This is the third strike here in the 1990s. The last walkout was for six weeks in 1996.
One key issue is the two-tier pay scale that was first introduced in the last contract. New employees are paid $4 an hour below the regular rate and don't reach the base rate for five years. The company now plans to widen the gap to $6 an hour and extend the catch-up time to six years.
The other main issues are wages and health insurance costs. The company wants to double the annual deductible, introduce co-payments for physical therapy and common preventive exams, and assess monthly premiums of $75-$150 for covering family members who have declined coverage through their own jobs.
These concession demands are in stark contrast to the tremendous increase in productivity at this plant. Dan Viewes, a striker with 15 years' seniority, said, "I remember when over 200 of us made 650 cans per minute; now it's 1,000."
Strikers received solidarity visits to the picket line from members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees who work at the Malden Mills textile plant in Lawrence, from a United Farm Workers organizer, and from Teamsters members, one of whom dropped off a donation of bread and stayed to talk for an hour while a Militant reporter was there. A sign tied to the fence reads "AFSCME Local 1730 Supports IAM."
Rose Ana Berbeo, a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers in New York; Tim Mailhot, a member of USWA Local 310, and David Corona in Des Moines, Iowa; Pete Seidman in Philadelphia; and Sarah Ullman, a member of the United Transportation Union in Boston, contributed to this article.