—ON THE PICKET LINE—

NY: Unionists rally in 4-month strike against Spectrum

QUEENS, N.Y. — “What do we want? A contract! When do we want it? Now!” shouted some 200 members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 at a July 19 rally in Astoria. The 1,800 IBEW workers have been on strike since March 28 against cable giant Charter Communications/Spectrum. Their last contract expired more than four years ago.

Charter purchased Time Warner Cable in 2015 and renamed it Spectrum. The company raked in some $3.5 billion in profits last year. They’re demanding steep concessions, including a halt to company contributions to workers’ medical and pension plans.

Leonardo Blandino, who has worked repairing outside cable lines for nine years, told the Militant that “the company is bringing in nonunion workers from other states to work here.”

“It’s not just a question of pensions and medical,” he said. “They are trying to send people out alone to do jobs. That’s dangerous. What if something happens?”

— Sara Lobman  

NY Teamsters protest union-busting firings at Waldner’s

NEW YORK — A spirited picket line at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital July 18 protested the firing of 40 members of Teamsters Local 814 by Waldner’s, a furniture supplier for the hospital. The unionists, many with more than 30 years on the job, were handed pink slips when they returned from the July 4th holiday.

The company ignored the union’s proposal for negotiations when the contract expired in March, Teamsters local organizer Julian Tysh told the Militant. Instead, it shut the doors on the Farmingdale, Long Island, warehouse.

Local union President Jason Ide said that the company wanted to get out of its obligations under the Teamsters’ pension plan.

— Vivian Sahner

Nurses in Boston strike over wages, conditions, patient care

BOSTON — Over 1,200 nurses at Tufts Medical Center here conducted a one-day strike July 12 to protest low wages, staffing cutbacks, declining patient care, and overtime demands in addition to long regular shifts of up to 16 hours. The nurses are members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

The medical center then locked out the nurses for the next four days. But the workers remained on the picket line day and night and won support from other unionists, local residents and families of patients. Hundreds of supporters from building trades unions, including plumbers, construction workers and carpenters, marched down the busy avenues to join the nurses on the picket line.

Another strike around similar issues occurred a few weeks earlier at Baystate Franklyn Medical Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Some 200 unionized nurses struck June 26 and were locked out for three days by the bosses when they reported to work the next day.

— Claudia Kaiser-Lenoir

 

Cabin crew workers strike British Airways
over pay

LONDON — Some 2,000 cabin crew workers struck British Airways July 1 against low pay and company reprisals against workers who had walked out earlier this year, denying them allowances and bonuses.

“The strike has opened up my vista,” 25-year-old Shane, who has worked at British Airways for two years, told the Militant. “I’ve met so many different people, and it has given me a feel for the potential power that we have.” The workers are members of the UNITE union.

Strike picket lines Communist League members visited were young, lively and spirited, with music, dancing and chanting going on.

The British Airways website says a job for a mixed fleet cabin crew member pays £21,000 to £25,000 a year ($27,360-$32,570), but the basic starting salary is just £12,192 per year. According to a 2016 UNITE study, nearly half of mixed fleet cabin workers at British Airways “said that they had taken on a second job to make ends meet with some saying they had to sleep in their cars between shifts because they couldn’t afford the petrol to drive home.”

With U.K. government backing, British Airways leased planes and got cabin crew and pilots from Qatar Airways to continue flying during the strike. In response, UNITE called for a further round of strikes through mid-August.

— Andrés Mendoza
and Daniel Savage

Housing maintenance workers in UK strike Mears for higher pay

MANCHESTER, England — Some 170 workers at Mears, a housing maintenance company, are striking for a wage raise. They’re currently making as much as £3,500 ($4,500) a year less than workers at other companies doing the same job.

“Our strike is about setting a bench mark,” shop steward Bill Sinclair said on the picket line here July 12. “If we lose, all the other housing maintenance companies in Manchester will say: ‘Look at the Mears workers. Why should you have more?’”

“They are undervaluing us, and now we are standing our ground,” said striker John Lavery.

The wage gap has been a source of anger among the workers for several years. It started when maintenance workers of the Manchester housing estates were split up and transferred to private companies. Recently workers from Manchester Working, a joint venture partly owned by Manchester City council, were transferred to Mears. The strike was launched May 16, initially for three days a week, and it became a full-time walkout from July 4 to Aug. 4, organized by the UNITE trade union.

— Dag Tirsén