Vol. 74/No. 4      February 1, 2010

Workers say the company had also demanded the right to subcontract work, but withdrew this in the agreement that was voted on. Olymel will now have the right to start a weekend shift composed of workers with the least seniority, but all workers will be members of the union with the same wages and benefits. The company had initially proposed the weekend shift be composed of nonunion workers at lower pay.

Outside the meeting where the vote was taken, several unionists told the Militant that they had put up a good fight.

While on strike workers were very visible in the area. They organized a demonstration, enlarged picket lines, and before the cold weather set in, often wandered through town with their picket signs. One of the local pizza chains, Med Pizza, offered half-price pizzas for strikers and their families.

—Annette Kouri

Hotel workers in L.A. fight
for new union contracts
LOS ANGELES—Hundreds of hotel workers rallied in front of the Regency Century Plaza here January 7 demanding new union contracts. “Don’t underestimate our capacities,” said Marguerita Ramos, a UNITE HERE Local 11 member and housekeeper, to the cheers of the crowd. Contracts covering 4,200 union hotel workers expired in 2009.

Richard Acosta, a cook at the LAX Hilton, said that 70 workers were suspended for a week without pay at that hotel for trying to organize a union. “Health benefits are the number one issue, with harassment and favoritism a close second. I’m here in solidarity with my union brothers and sisters in the fight for dignity,” he said.

Benjamin Leonen, a cook at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, told rally participants, “I do the same work for the same company, but earn less money and have fewer rights because there is not a union.” The majority of Los Angeles hotel workers are not organized.

Other rally speakers included Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO; Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor; and Tom Walsh, president of UNITE HERE Local 11.

—Arlene Rubinstein

Canada packing workers
fight company lockout
At the XL beef plant in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, some 200 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1400 are fighting a lockout.

XL Foods is the largest beef processor in Canada. The company laid the workers off in April. In September it transformed the layoff into a lockout when union members voted to reject concessions that included an increase in mandatory overtime and lower wages over a six-year contract.

Since then workers have been picketing the plant and asking people to boycott XL products. XL Foods told the media that it is prepared to restart operations at Moose Jaw, but it would require a union contract “that will allow [the company] to be competitive in the marketplace.”

On December 18, UFCW vice president Mark Lauritsen presented a check for $86,000 to Local 1400 at the picket line. The funds, which are to be distributed to the locked-out workers, were donated by UFCW union members from the United States and Canada attending a recent union conference.

—Annette Kouri
 
 
Related articles:
Scaffold collapse kills four workers in Toronto
Massachusetts: Unionists rally for contract at TJX  
 
 
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