—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Maggie Trowe, Editor

 

California protest: Reinstate
fired McDonald’s worker!

OAKLAND, Calif. — Fast-food workers mobilized with supporters at a McDonald’s in north Oakland Jan. 16 to demand the reinstatement of Carlton Inman, an African-American who has participated in Fight for $15 actions. He works at McDonald’s in nearby Richmond. Co-workers of Inman who participated in the protest told the Militant that he was a good worker and unfairly let go. “They kept reducing my hours and then didn’t call me at all,” Inman said.

Chanting, “Black lives matter at work,” protesters blocked the store’s driveways for more than two hours. The action was organized by the Bay Area Solidarity Action Team and the East Bay Organizing Committee, a group of fast-food workers.

The demonstration was part of a “Reclaim Martin Luther King” weekend of activities that included a march of over 2,000 here Jan. 18, two actions at the Oakland airport and an occupation of the Bay Bridge.

— Betsey Stone

Airport workers rally in nine
cities for $15 on MLK Day

Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ organized actions demanding $15 an hour and a union at nine airports — Boston; Chicago; Miami; Newark, New Jersey; New York; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and Washington, D.C. — on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Jan. 18.

Chanting, “Enough is enough!” more than 100 airport workers and supporters marched and rallied at the airport in Philadelphia, where airline subcontractors have refused to pay wheelchair attendants the $12 an hour city minimum wage, saying they aren’t eligible because they receive tips.

“Like Martin Luther King we are fighting for fair wages, workers’ rights and dignity,” wheelchair attendant Onetha McKnight told the rally. “When King participated in the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, workers carried signs saying, ‘I am a man!’ and ‘I am a woman.’ We need to say that today. No one should have to work two or three jobs or live on government aid. And we have the right to form a union.”

Some 300 workers rallied at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Héctor Figueroa, president of Local 32BJ, was one of a number of speakers who pointed out that in 1963 King called for a minimum wage of $2 per hour, the equivalent of $15.51 today.

“We need this $15. The rent is going up,” LaToya Johnson, a wheelchair attendant for five years, told the Militant. “How do we pay for food?”

In Miami, more than 60 airport workers demonstrated outside the offices of airline contractor Eulen America Inc. Cristian Garcia Veras came with fellow maintenance workers from Nova Southeastern University to bring solidarity. The workers are demanding TCB Systems Inc., the contractor they work for, recognize SEIU Local 32BJ as their union.

Three Eulen America contract workers from other cities gave greetings at the rally — Delores Green, who works at the JFK Airport in New York; Sandra Smith from Ft. Lauderdale; and Kebede Tegegn, employed at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. After the rally the three joined a delegation that tried unsuccessfully to meet with corporate officials.

“I want to tell them face to face that slavery was abolished a very long time ago,” Smith told the rally.

— Janet Post in Philadelphia,
Dean Hazlewood in New York,
and Anthony Dutrow in Miami

10,000 UK junior doctors strike
against extension of hours

MANCHESTER, England — More than 10,000 junior doctors — doctors in postgraduate training — set up some 100 picket lines across England Jan. 12 and struck for 48 hours. The actions were organized by the British Medical Association. Outside Salford Royal Hospital here strikers carried handmade placards protesting cuts to the National Health Service and against contract proposals by Health Minister Jeremy Hunt that extends hours.

“They want doctors to work from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday with no extra pay for Saturdays or evenings,” Jack Dover told the Militant as he picketed. “A tired doctor could risk a person’s life.”

“We’re not asking for a pay rise — we’re trying to prevent a pay cut,” said Anna Skinner, a first-year trainee at Newham University Hospital in London. “The government is asking for 40 percent more work from us with nothing in return. Even when we are fully staffed during the week we are overstretched.”

Katie Percival, a doctor in her first year of training at Salford Royal, said the government has not listened to doctors. “Instead, they are spreading a lot of lies. I’m really glad we have a union. I’m willing to stay here for as long as it takes!”

— Catharina Tirsén
and Paul Davies