Vol. 72/No. 21      May 26, 2008

SEIU members were mobilized from New York City and the surrounding area to show solidarity with the strikers, who have maintained 24-hour picket lines for 74 days straight.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Helen Sieger’s got to go!” chanted the unionists, referring to the owner of the facility. Sieger eliminated health-care benefits, sparking the strike. There has been no contract since 2002. The workers are now fighting for a new contract with health benefits.

“We’re struggling. The government and the labor department have done nothing for us,” said Jeffrey Wojciechowski, a striker who works in the kitchen. “Look what the cops did to Sean Bell,” he added, referring to the 23-year-old Black youth gunned down in a hail of 50 police bullets in November 2006.

“The boss needs to be fair,” said James Harding, who works at another 1199-organized facility in the Bronx. “We should not have to be out here.”

—Dan Fein

Namibian zinc miners strike
largest mine, refinery
Miners at Anglo American’s Skorpion zinc mine and refinery, the largest zinc mine in Namibia, went on strike May 10 demanding higher wages and an end the discriminatory pay scales between African and white workers.

The workers are demanding wage increases of 14 percent along with travel and housing allowances. Most of them are migrants from northern Namibian villages near the Angolan border.

The union says that workers earn around N$3,200 (US$420) per month. Namibian managerial staff earn the equivalent of around US$2,500, but their white expatriate counterparts make as much as US$4,000 per month.

The Skorpion mine, located 15 miles north of Rosh Pinah in southern Namibia, produces 150,000 tons of high-grade zinc per year, which is exported through the southern port of Luderitz.

The price of benchmark zinc on the London Metal Exchange has dropped from an all-time high of US$4,580 a metric ton in November 2006 to about US$2,240.

—Sam Manuel  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home