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Vol. 71/No. 17      April 30, 2007

 
On the Picket Line
 
Auto workers in France
end strike at Citroën plant
PARIS—More than 400 workers at the Citroën auto assembly plant in Aulnay, 20 miles north of here, voted April 10 to end their six-week strike. Workers were demanding a €300 monthly wage increase, a minimum monthly salary of €1,525 (€1=US$1.33), the permanent hiring of 700 temporary workers currently employed there, and that the 600 workers over age 55 be allowed to retire.

Citroën refused to increase general wages, but cut costs for transportation to work and for the factory canteen, awarded a one-time bonus of €125, and promised to take no disciplinary actions against the strikers.

The assembly plant strike comes on the heels of a victorious walkout by 170 workers at the Magnetto stamping plant, which is located within the Aulnay site. After a six-day strike the Magnetto workers obtained wage increases of €100, regular contracts for 10 temporary workers, and five extra vacation days.

—Derek Jeffers

UMWA signs contract, ends strike
at Pennsylvania, Illinois mines
PITTSBURGH, April 13—Representatives of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and officials from Foundation Coal Holdings Inc. agreed yesterday to end a nine-day strike at three coal mines—Emerald and Cumberland mines in Pennsylvania and the Wabash Mine in Illinois.

The Cumberland and Emerald mines are both now working now under a “me too” version of the 2007 BCOA (Bituminous Coal Operators Association) national agreement, which had been settled and signed in early January.

The agreement with the Wabash Mine, which announced during the walkout it is closing its operations, gives basic benefits, severance, and relocation packages to out-of-work miners. Part of the agreement gives the UMWA “successorship rights,” under which anyone who mines that coal for the next five years must mine it union.

—Ryan Scott

Meat packers in Quebec
win strike at pork slaughterhouse
TORONTO—After six months on strike, workers at the A. Trahan pork slaughterhouse near Yamachiche, Quebec, voted April 14 by an 87 percent margin to accept a new contract. The workers won their main demands for “union recognition and respect,” said Stéphane Landry, chief shop steward of the United Food and Commercial Workers there. Union members will be able to meet with union representatives in the plant, who will also get time off for union matters. Surveillance cameras in the factory will be removed from the locker room and cafeteria and the workers will no longer have to punch time cards when they go to the washroom. The 200 strikers won solidarity, including a $9,000 donation from aluminum workers at Bécancour.

—Annette Kouri and Joe Young
 
 
Related articles:
Suit challenges home-care workers’ exclusion from U.S. labor protections
 
 
 
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