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Vol. 71/No. 8      February 26, 2007

 
On the Picket Line
 
Meat packers in Quebec strike
for first union contract
TORONTO—Some 200 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union have been on strike since October 5 at the A. Trahan slaughterhouse in Yamachiche, near Trois Rivières, in Quebec. The workers won union recognition in September 2003 and are fighting to force the employer to deal with the union. About 15,000 hogs are killed and cut in this plant each week, resulting in many work injuries.

In another development, pork producer Olymel announced at the end of January that it will close its slaughterhouse at Vallée-Jonction, south of Quebec City because the 1,100 meat packers there have refused massive wage and benefit concessions. On January 8 Olymel demanded that the workers, who are members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions, accept wage and benefit cuts of 38 percent or the plant would be closed. The unionists rejected this demand six days later by a vote of more than 99 percent. The company then demanded cuts of 27 percent, which was then voted down by 97 percent.

—Joe Young

Electronics workers in Scotland
protest closing of two plants
IRVINE, Scotland—More than 200 angry Simclar electronics workers attended a February 8 Community union meeting to discuss pressing their fight. Owner Samuel Russell shut down without notice two factories, one here and one in Kilwinning, January 29. Four hundred twenty workers instantly lost their jobs with no guaranteed redundancy (severance) payments. Some 50 workers traveled to the company site near Dunfermline, Fife, February 7-8 to protest the firings and talk to workers there. Community union official John Steele announced plans for a demonstration in Irvine on February 17.

—Pamela Holmes

Explosions at two mines
in Colombia kill 40 workers
Explosions at two underground mines in Colombia killed 40 coal miners the first week of February. The first was at the La Preciosa mine February 3 in the town of San Roque, 255 miles northeast of Bogota. It killed 32 workers. Another explosion February 6 occurred at the La Capilla mine in Boyaca province killing eight miners. Much of the coal mining operations in Colombia is done in small makeshift mines with very few safety procedures. Colombia is Latin America’s leading coal exporter. It has known coal reserves of about 7.4 billion tons, more than 94 percent of which is anthracite and bituminous coal.

—Ryan Scott  
 
 
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