The Militant - July 17, 2006 -- On the Picket Line

Vol. 70/No. 26 July 17, 2006

On the Picket Line

Boston: pickets protest firing
of health care workers
BOSTON—Thirty people picketed in front of Children’s Hospital here June 19 to protest the firing a month earlier of three health-care workers—Ana LaMarche, Nicolasa Lopez, and Dr. Ana Ortiz. A leaflet put out by their supporters charges the hospital owners with firing the workers as retaliation for “asserting their rights, expressing patients’ and colleagues’ concerns and for trying to organize a union.” LaMarche, Lopez, and Ortiz have been involved in the fight for immigrant rights and against unjust working conditions. They have also filed charges challenging their dismissal with the National Labor Relations Board.

—Ted Leonard

New York: union wins back
job of fired meat packer
BRONX, New York—For the second time this year workers’ solidarity succeeded in winning back a job for a co-worker dismissed at Garden Manor Farms, a meat processing plant here. Alfred “Flaco” Chevere was fired the week of June 5 for “absenteeism and tardiness.” The company is part of the Hunts Point Meat Market. Many co-workers were upset and encouraged Chevere to fight the firing through the union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 342. Union representatives, Chevere, and company representatives met on June 13. After the meeting, Robert Roman, the shop steward, announced to workers, “Flaco will be back on Monday.”

Earlier this year the union also succeeded in winning Kevin Carr’s job back after the company fired him for “insubordination.” Roman said, “All the hard times we had on strike to win the union a few years ago is paying off.”

—Dan Fein

Pennsylvania: locked-out workers
fight attacks on health care
HAZLETON, Pennsylvania—The Truth Hardware manufacturing plant here locked out the 109 members of Local 90 of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers Union on June 5. The company, a subsidiary of the British conglomerate FKI, is demanding workers pay a big share of their health-care costs.

Karen Salazer, financial secretary of Local 90, told the Militant that since their contract expired in March they had been working under the old agreement. The majority of the workers rejected two takeback offers from the bosses. Then the company, which makes window locks and assemblies, refused further negotiations and locked them out. Truth Hardware then bused in 35 scabs from a nonunion plant in Minnesota. The scabs left after two and a half weeks, and the plant is now being run by managers and office personnel, Salazer said. The workers have been receiving solidarity from area unions.

—John Studer

Iceland: Airport workers
conduct three-hour walkout
KEFLAVíK, Iceland—Defying company threats of firings and damage claims, several hundred workers at IGS Ground Services at the international airport here walked off the job June 25 between 5:00 and 8:00 a.m. Workers point to low wages, heavy workloads, long hours, and poor safety conditions as the reasons for the action.

A prominent demand of the unionists is to end a new shift system called “Time Care.” Workers are sent home for four to six hours and then have to return to finish their shift. Fifteen-hour shifts are not uncommon. Further job actions are planned unless workers’ demands are met. If the company fires anyone, “we will all stand by our co-worker,” said ramp worker Gints Liepins.

—Ögmundur Jónsson

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