On the Picket Line: 10/16/97 id NAA23706; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:52:03 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the October 16, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- ON THE PICKET LINE: OCTOBER 16, 1997 TEXAS BUS DRIVERS STRIKE About 300 members of Teamsters Local 997 who drive and repair buses for the Forth Worth Transportation Authority walked out on strike Oct. 6. The central issue in the city's first-ever public-transit strike is job security. Local 997 President Daulton Alexander said that "union members are tired and fed up with how they're treated." The FWTA wants to use more small buses, and wants a new contract that allows it to pay those who drive these small buses lower wages. DOCKERS' SOLIDARITY Shippers: Don't carry cargo loaded in Liverpool, England, or at any dock operated by the company that fired 329 Liverpool dock workers two years ago. If you do, you'll be sailing a ship to nowhere, unwelcome in every port of call. That message was brought home again at the end of September and beginning of October. Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union--first in Oakland, Calif., and then up the coast and across the border in Vancouver, Canada--refused to unload the freighter Neptune Jade. The ship carried goods it had picked up in Thamesport, England, which is owned by the group that owns the Merseyside docks in Liverpool. Unionized workers in Liverpool have been fighting to get their jobs back for two years. An increasingly strong international campaign of solidarity is backing them up. For several days, the Neptune Jade made repeated attempts to dock in Oakland, but was repeatedly rebuffed as ILWU members refused to cross solidarity picket lines. Finally, the ship turned away and sped north. But Canadian dockers were ready. When they too refused to handle the Neptune Jade's cargo, the freighter gave up on North America altogether and headed for Japan. If bosses at the Neptune Orient Lines think they'll have an easier time there, they're in for a shock. All Japan Dock Workers' Union Assistant General Secretary Akinobu Itoh says his union has already staged an illegal half-day sympathy strike "to support the struggle of the Liverpool dockers," and is planning other actions. ILWU spokesperson Steve Stallone said that "selling public assets for a song and turning around and trying to bust unions and go to casual labor is a trend happening all around the world. ... The only way we can deal with international companies is to coordinate our effort internationally." ORGANIZING TO WIN There are more victories to report on the union organizing front. On Sept. 24, over 2,000 registered nurses and other health-care workers employed by the state of Pennsylvania voted in District 1199P/Service Employees. The State, County and Municipal Employees union has brought in road and bridge workers in Fallon County, Mont., nursing-home employees in Wasco County, Ore., and building-service workers and skycaps at Portland, Ore., International Airport. The Government Employees union now represents workers in Orlando, Fla., on Parris Island, S.C., and in the Veterans Administration prescription unit in Nashville, Tenn. Workers at the Central Blood Bank in Pittsburgh are new members of the Service Employees. So are employees at Bentley Gardens Nursing Home in New Haven, Conn., school bus drivers in Shelton, Conn., city employees in Avon, Conn., and parking workers at New Haven Airport. Recycling workers at Nortech Recovery Facility in Placer County, Calif., brought in the Operating Engineers. Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 1 has organized workers on the Showboat Mardi Gras Casino in Chicago. SWOC II is picking up steam. Named for the great Steel Workers Organizing Campaign of the 1930s, SWOC II reports these victories: Workers who manufacture heavy equipment at Huron Castings in northern Michigan. Workers who process tomatoes and make ketchup at the Hunt Wesson Co. plant in Fresno, Calif. And the first joint campaigns by the Unification Organizing Committee of the Steel Workers, Auto Workers and Machinists--the three unions that will complete a merger in the year 2000--are chalking up wins: At the Olin Employees Credit Union in East Alton and Godfrey, Ill., and at C&F Foods in Sikeston, Mo. At least part of the Midwest is seeing a rise in the number of union organizing victories. A review of National Labor Relations Board elections in the region covering Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and northern Illinois shows that so far this year, 53 percent of unionization elections have resulted in victory. That's compared to 50 percent for the same period in 1996. The increase is slight, but it's significant. And it does not reflect the AFL-CIO's new emphasis on organizing directly through card-check campaigns rather than going the NLRB election route. PROTEST SWINGLINE PLANT CLOSING Members of Teamsters Local 808 and supporters from the labor movement demonstrate outside the Swingline Stapler plant in Queens, N.Y., Oct. 3, to protest the plant's closing. Swingline is laying off some 400 workers and moving operations to Mexico, where it will beef up profits by paying workers even less than it paid at the Queens plant. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was among the speakers who said the Swingline workers losing their jobs are victims of NAFTA. Sweeney criticized President Bill Clinton's move to expand NAFTA with "fast track" legislation. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. 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