Momentive strikers rally against Wall Street owners

Militant/Jacob Perasso

NEW YORK — A couple hundred strikers and supporters rallied in downtown Manhattan Jan. 13 in support of some 700 workers, members of International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America Local 81359, who have been on strike for over two months against Momentive Performance Materials in Waterford, 160 miles north of here. The protest took place outside Apollo Global Management, a $186 billion private equity firm that owns the majority of the company.

“This company doesn’t know what it’s up against,” Local 81359 President Dominick Patrignani told protesters. “For 73 days we have maintained round-the-clock picket lines. The will of our people will not stop.” Several district and local CWA union officers spoke in solidarity with the strikers.

The striking unionists delivered a petition with 4,000 signatures from their community demanding Apollo press company bosses to negotiate a contract.

Local Vice President Darryl Houshower told the Militant that Momentive bosses had applied for an injunction against strikers the previous week, but a judge denied it, postponing a decision. In a blow to Momentive’s efforts to intimidate and restrict strikers, the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department pulled their officers off the picket lines Jan. 16, Patrignani said.

— JACOB PERASSO