Vol. 77/No. 8      March 4, 2013

RUEIL-MALMAISON, France—About 1,000 workers, most from the North Amiens Goodyear plant, demonstrated in front of Goodyear France headquarters in this Paris suburb Feb. 12, protesting the projected closing of the factory.

The CGT union in the plant, which represents 86 percent of the 1,173 workers there, has been fighting threats to close the plant since 2007.

At that time Goodyear proposed making new investments in both its plants in Amiens, which lies 90 miles north of Paris, on the condition that workers there accept rolling shifts, effectively eliminating most weekends.

Unions at the South Amiens plant, where 1,000 workers are employed, accepted the deal, and in return management guaranteed them jobs through 2014. The CGT at the North Amiens plant refused.

“It’s not us who are the criminals, that’s the bosses of Goodyear and of Arcelor Mittal,” Mickaël Wamen, a CGT official at Goodyear, told the rally in response to statements by company officials. Arcelor Mittal is threatening to close its steel mill in Florange in the east of France.

Unionists from the mill were among dozens of others from some 20 factories and other workplaces fighting layoffs who joined the rally.

These included 60 striking workers from the Peugeot plant in Aulnay; 20 workers from the South Amiens plant; workers from the Goodyear plant in Montluçon; a Total refinery in Normandy; the Ford plant near Bordeaux; and a group of women laid off by the mail-order firm 3 Suisses.

French labor law requires meetings between unions and management before layoffs can begin. The CGT at Goodyear is planning another demonstration to coincide with the next meeting scheduled March 7.

—Claude Bleton and Derek Jeffers

Thousands of coal miners strike in Colombia

For the first time in 22 years, workers at the Cerrejón open pit coal mine in Colombia went on strike Feb. 7. Among their central demands are better health care for miners and higher wages and protection for temporary workers.

El Cerrejón, owned by mining giants BHP Billiton, Anglo American, and Xstrata, is the largest open pit mine in the world. It is located in a rural area in the northeastern part of the country.

There are 3,700 permanent workers who are represented by the union and “also some 8,000 temporary workers,” National Union of Coal Industry Workers (Sintracarbón) Press Secretary Alvaro Enrique Frías told the Militant in a Feb. 16 phone interview from Guajira province. The union wants the temporary workers to be given the chance to become permanent workers. “They should at least get double the minimum wage,” he said.

“Our biggest problem is health care,” Frías said. “The health services offered look beautiful on paper, but the reality is different. The necessary infrastructure does not exist here to meet the needs of the workers.”

“There are 700 workers with silicosis, lead poisoning and carpal tunnel syndrome among the permanent workers,” he said. Mine management refuses to recognize these are work-related injuries.

El Cerrejón broke off negotiations Feb. 17, demanding that the union agree to binding arbitration if an agreement isn’t reached in a few days.

“We believe in our company … and we offer a responsible course,” Sintracarbón said in a Feb. 17 statement rejecting the company’s demands. “That’s a more than sufficient framework for resolving our differences and getting a collective agreement.”

—Seth Galinsky

After 2-month strike, BlueLinx workers in Miami return to work

MIAMI—“I’m glad to be back at work,” Dwayne Beal, a member of Teamsters Local 769, told the Militant. He and eight other Teamsters at BlueLinx went on strike Nov. 30, after the company threw their business agent out of the plant during the contract negotiation period. After more than two months, they returned Feb. 5.

BlueLinx is a building materials wholesaler with facilities across the country. During the strike, workers explained that they saw the company’s action as an attack on the existence of the union.

“The temps are benefiting from what we fought for,” Dan Harrell, a warehouse worker at BlueLinx told the Militant in front of the plant. Many of those the company hired to try to break the strike are still on the job, but under the agreement the strikers maintain their full seniority.

Teamster members also approved a new contract. It includes switching to an inferior insurance plan—something the company had pushed for and workers had opposed. “The strike was over unfair labor practices, not the economic issues,” Harrell said.

The strikers received solidarity from other unionists during their fight. UPS workers joined the picket line Dec. 20, and railroad workers refused to cross the picket line to deliver materials. Members of Teamsters Local 853, who work for BlueLinx in Newark, Calif., held a one-day work stoppage in late December in solidarity with the Miami workers.

“In California, BlueLinx is trying to relocate a distribution facility in order to eliminate the workers’ union in the middle of a contract term,” according to a Jan. 20 Teamster Nation union flyer.

—Tom Baumann and Naomi Craine

Wash. Teamsters ratify contract with organic food warehouse

SEATTLE—Drivers and warehouse workers of Teamsters Local 117 ratified a five-year contract Feb. 7 after a nine-week strike at United Natural Foods Inc. distribution center in Auburn, Wash.

The agreement, which passed by a vote of 122 to 11, “provides for the reinstatement of all workers, including the 72 who had been permanently replaced, health and welfare protections for workers, and meaningful wage increases,” according to a Feb. 8 statement from the local.

“Workers at UNFI stood together courageously in difficult conditions to fight for dignity and respect,” Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of Local 117, was quoted as saying in the statement.

“It was a compromise, we’re glad to be back,” driver Jeremy Ray, 39, told the Militant.

—John Naubert