Vol. 75/No. 45      December 12, 2011

Strikers, students exchange
solidarity at McGill University

MONTREAL—1,700 support workers on strike against McGill University and thousands of students protesting rising tuition costs have joined together in solidarity here.

The workers, members of the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), affiliated to the Public Service Alliance of Canada, are nearing the three month point in their strike, which began Sept. 1. Negotiations, which had been suspended by a government-appointed conciliator, will restart Nov. 25. The workers are demanding wage parity with other universities in Montreal, protection of their benefits and pensions and shift premiums for evening and weekend work.

On Nov. 10 the university administration requested the intervention of 100 riot police on campus when some 200 students demonstrated in front of the administration building against higher tuition. The police used pepper spray and tear gas. The students earlier participated in a student march of at least 20,000. McGill support staff on strike had a contingent of hundreds in the march.

On Nov. 14 a statement by Kevin Whittaker, president of MUNACA, was read to a rally of 1,000 held in front of the administration building to protest the police attack. Whittaker said, “The university’s response to protesters on Thursday night was a dismal and disturbing display of authoritarian, violent tactics.” During the rally, participants waved to strikers picketing at an entrance to the university and shouted, “Solidarité.” The strikers’ picketing is greatly restricted by injunctions that the courts have granted the university administration.

—Joe Young

Limestone workers
strike in Indiana

OOLITIC, Ind.—On Nov. 15, members of Millworkers Local 8093 at the Indiana Limestone mill here rejected a host of concessions contained in the company’s “last and best offer” and voted unanimously to strike starting the following day.

The 50 strikers—about half the mill’s workforce—have picketed all four gates. The Millworkers cut and transport giant slabs of “dimensional” limestone. Coworkers organized into two other unions—the Journeyman Stonecutters and the International Association of Machinists—are honoring the picket lines. A small group of workers organized by the Laborers union have crossed, but production is shut down.

Acquired in November 2010 by Cleveland-based Resilience Capital Partners, Indiana Limestone’s new owners are pushing to gut seniority, cut sick days, and make it easier to fire workers on the pretext of drugs, alcohol, or tardiness. One proposed key change in contract language would substitute the word “proficient” for “qualified,” allowing bosses to circumvent seniority rights and lay off older workers, many of whom have worked in the mill for decades.

Ronnie Watson, Local 8093 negotiator and mill veteran, explained, “It’s not about money, it’s about our rights.”

Kerry King has worked at the plant since 1980. He said this was the first strike at the plant in more than 30 years. He could retire, he said, but “I’m sticking around for the younger guys” who have never been involved in a strike.

Spirits on the picket line have been high. Passing motorists on Route 37 steadily honk their horns in support. A number of truckers making deliveries to the plant have turned around and refused to cross the line after seeing the pickets. Community members have stopped by with donations of food. And representatives of area unions have joined the picket line, including United Auto Workers Local 440, which organizes workers at the GM plant in nearby Bedford. Members and supporters of the Occupy Bloomington encampment have also visited the strikers to offer their solidarity.

—Carl Weinberg

Solidarity grows
for Greek steelworkers

ATHENS, Greece—On the 25th day of their strike, 400 workers at the Greek Steelworks in Aspropyrgos, a suburb northwest of here, received a boost when the Aspropyrgos Labor Council called a three-hour work stoppage and 5,000 workers rallied outside the plant in solidarity, according to local union president Giorgos Sifonios, who spoke with Militant reporters.

Several hundred people marched in the nearby town of Elefsina that same evening, November 24, defiantly shouting, “Twenty-five days of strike! We will celebrate Christmas in the Steelworks!” The evening action was organized by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), a national trade union federation.

The workers are resisting company demands to cut hours down to five a day, amounting to a 40 percent wage cut.

Maria Delli a wife of a striker, announced at the evening action the formation of a committee of struggle of strikers’ wives. “We share with our husbands the struggle to make ends meet,” she said. “We cannot live on 500 euros [$665] a month. Let [mill owner] Mr. Manesis start up the furnaces by himself if he wants.”

“Don’t expect us to buckle,” Sifonios told rally participants. “We will not go back until our 34 coworkers are rehired and the company backs down from its demand for a five-hour working day. We continue to fight and to open roads for all workers in Greece.” He talked about efforts to convince workers from the company’s two other plants in Velestino and Volos to join the strike.

—Georges Mehrabian
and Natasha Terlexis

Greece: 48-hour strike
shuts down Athens newspaper

“Some 850 of us, almost the entire workforce, shut down the printing plant as well as the editorial and press offices of Elefterotypia Nov. 21 and 22 in a 48-hour strike,” Moisis Litsis, a journalist at the Elefterotypia daily and an alternate member of the executive committee of the Athens Daily Press Union (ESIEA), told the Militant in an interview.

“We have been working without pay for four months now. Our main demand is to be paid all the wages and salaries owed to the press workers, journalists, office workers and others,” said Litsis. “Several other major dailies have successfully cut wages by 10 percent and have gotten workers to sign individual contracts in order to undermine collective agreements with the trade unions. We will join the general strike called for December 1 by all the union federations and will then strike for an additional two days in order to continue pressing for our demands.”

—Georges Mehrabian
and Natasha Terlexis