Vol. 75/No. 18      May 9, 2011

Canada coal miners win
retirement benefits in strike
MONTREAL—Coal miners at Teck Resources Elkview mine near Sparwood, British Columbia, ended their 68-day strike April 7. They won an extension of medical benefits to retirees, who had never had them before.

The 689 miners, members of United Steelworkers Local 9346, voted 58.7 percent in favor of the proposed contract. On March 19, the miners had rejected a company offer by 57 percent.

The contract runs for five years. The company will increase its contribution to the workers Registered Retirement Savings Plan, which is tied to the stock market.

Teck has six coal mines in western Canada and 63 percent of the coal is shipped to Asia. The Elkview mine produces coal used in steelmaking. Demand is up in particular because of flooding of coal mines in Australia, the world’s biggest producer of this kind of coal.

—Joe Young

Truck drivers in China strike
to protest port fees, low wages
Truck drivers, many of them owner-operators, began a three-day strike April 20 in Shanghai, one of the world’s largest ports, over rising fuel costs and port fees, and the whittling away of their real wages by rising inflation in China.

Blocking roads with their trucks, some 2,000 strikers demonstrated April 20 and the following day near the city’s Waigaoqiao port. Baton-wielding police attacked the workers, arresting some and injuring others. The protests spread to other ports in Shanghai, including Baoshan and Yangshan.

“One of the government’s greatest fears is that popular discontent over inflation could spark a wider protest movement,” said the Financial Times.

The Chinese government has increased fuel prices twice this year, the latest being a 5 percent rise in early April. The country’s official inflation rate rose to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in March, which includes a nearly 12 percent jump in food costs.

“Everything is going up except the transportation payment,” a 38-year-old driver involved in the protest actions told the Wall Street Journal. The 1,200-yuan transportation payment he gets for hauling a container amounts to $184. It hasn’t changed in a decade. Yet rising diesel prices and other costs have reduced his actual take-home pay to about $30.

In an effort to quell the protests, Shanghai’s Municipal Transport and Port Authority announced April 23 it would repeal a fuel surcharge and reduce some port fees.

—Brian Williams

Air Canada workers fight for contract
MONTREAL—“Mobilization seems to be the order of the day,” said Jamie Ross, acting president of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 2002. Some 100 union members and their supporters rallied at the airport here April 21 to support the fight by Air Canada workers in the CAW for a decent contract. The contract for the 3,800 sales and service workers across Canada expired February 28. Since 2002 workers’ wages at Air Canada have not kept pace with even half the inflation rate. Management is demanding pension cuts of up to 50 percent.

—Beverly Bernardo

California grocery store
workers authorize strike
LOS ANGELES—At meetings throughout Southern California, grocery store workers voted April 20 to authorize a strike if a contract cannot be reached with three large grocery store chains.

The contracts expired March 6 at Ralphs (a subsidiary of Krogers), Vons (Safeway), and Albertson markets. They have been extended day to day since. Some 62,000 retail clerks are employed by these chains.

Outside a contract vote meeting in Burbank, Mark Meshkat, a wine steward at Ralphs, told the Militant, “They are trying to take away holiday premium pay, make you work seven days in a row with regular pay. They want to expand the number of miles you can be forced to drive to work from 25 to 40.” Meshkat said the majority of the retail clerks work part-time and with rising gas prices the long commute to work has devastating consequences.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 president Rick Icaza told the Los Angeles Times that employers also want to reduce meat-cutter hours, which could result in 700 union jobs being lost, increase worker payment for heath care, and eliminate Health Maintenance Organization medical coverage.

—Norton Sandler