—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Maggie Trowe, Editor

Ft. Lauderdale airport workers demand pay increase

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — G2 Secure Staff workers — wheelchair attendants, carousel baggage handlers and sky caps — held a rally for higher pay at the airport here July 29 organized by Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ.

The protesters are some of the 1,200 contracted airport workers now exempted from the Broward County Living Wage Ordinance. They earn an average of $8.14 an hour. They are demanding the county minimum wage — $11.68 for those who receive benefits and $13.20 for those who don’t — be extended to them.

“This fight has been going on for two and half years,” Gueldere Guerilus told the Militant at the Southwest Terminal a few days after the rally. He is a leader of the fight for a union and a pay raise who has worked for G2 for more than eight years. “Our fight is not only for us, but for everyone. Twenty years ago you could make three times as much doing these same jobs.”

Guerilus said they’ve worked together with workers at other airports to organize a union and $15 an hour and were encouraged by a recent victory in Philadelphia where airport workers won a $12 an hour minimum wage.

G2 is a subcontractor for Southwest Airlines and Virgin Airlines, both of which refuse to recognize the union, he said. Southwest ramp workers and ticket agents have a union.

In 2014 Southwest topped $1 billion in profits. Virgin also reported increases.

The Ft. Lauderdale Unitarian Universalist Church and the Disability Caucus of Miami have helped organize support for the workers.

—Anthony Dutrow

Fired El Super grocery unionist in Los Angeles wins job back

LOS ANGELES — Close to 200 jubilant union members and supporters escorted Fermín Rodríguez back to work at El Super grocery store #13 in south Los Angeles Aug. 9. Rodríguez, a cashier and member of United Food and Commercial Workers, has been involved in the two-year fight for a union and a contract. He was fired Jan. 8.

Last December workers voted 402-131 to recertify the union after the company pushed through a decertification vote. The workers then launched a boycott of El Super that has been endorsed by 110 community organizations, 18 neighborhood councils and the California Labor Federation.

As part of actions at more than a dozen El Super stores and the company’s headquarters June 17, more than 1,000 El Super workers and supporters turned in 25,000 signatures demanding Rodríguez be reinstated. A week earlier the state Division of Labor Enforcement Standards ordered El Super to pay more than $180,000 in penalties for imposing unpaid off-the-clock work.

On July 30, Chief U.S. District Court Judge George King, responding to a union lawsuit charging the grocery company with unfair labor practices, issued an injunction ordering El Super to immediately reinstate Rodríguez, who the judge said had been unlawfully terminated for his union activity, and to restore the vacation time accrual policy that the company had changed in an attempt to deny workers earned vacation.

El Super has 46 stores in southern California, Arizona and Nevada. The 600 UFCW members at the seven stores that are unionized are demanding a contract that includes a 40-hour workweek, sick pay, wage increases and seniority rights. El Super has agreed to resume contract negotiations Aug. 18.

“We want to thank everyone from the community for supporting us,” Rodríguez said at the rally. “I have always fought for my rights with the union. There were eight other workers fired. We are fighting for them to be returned to their jobs.”

— Bill Arth and Deborah Liatos

Australia dockworkers protest layoffs, union busting

SYDNEY — Workers at Hutchison Ports Australia, members of the Maritime Union of Australia, walked off the job here for four hours Aug. 3 to protest the company’s refusal to negotiate with the union over layoffs. Chanting, “Stand up! Fight back!” they marched to the Hutchison terminal, where they were joined by other members of the MUA and supporters from a number of other unions at a rally of some 200.

The company — a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings, which operates in 52 ports in 26 countries — sacked close to 100 workers at its port operations in Sydney and Brisbane by midnight text message and emails Aug. 6.

The company has subcontracted out ships to two other Sydney terminals — Patrick and DP World. The union calls this “textbook union-busting tactics in offloading shipping contracts in order to increase casualization and undermine current conditions.”

“We want to negotiate a redundancy [layoff] process that is fair,” Warren Smith, MUA assistant national secretary, told the rally. The union wants the right of return to work for laid-off workers.

“No one wants to lose their job,” Ray Byrne, one of the Hutchison workers, who had previously worked at Patrick, told the Militant. The company has been operating for only two years, and there is no clear seniority, he said. “They want to get rid of anyone outspoken.”

Following the rally the workers marched right up to the Hutchison terminal building. Messages of solidarity were read from the Union of Hong Kong Dockers, who successfully fought a 40-day strike battle against Hutchison Port Holdings in 2013, and the U.S. International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

— Linda Harris