On the Picket Line: 10/30/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the October 30, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- ON THE PICKET LINE: OCTOBER 30, 1997 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SECRETARIES WALK About 800 clerical and technical workers--mostly women, the people who keep prestigious Columbia University running but get paid very little for it--walked out on strike Oct. 16. When Auto Workers Local 2110 set up picket lines, many students, faculty members and other workers honored them. Hundreds of classes were moved off campus. With the university administration bringing in temporary workers to fill the strikers' jobs, a group called Students for a Fair Contract issued a flier calling on the temps to turn around and not scab. The main issue--as it has been since Local 2110 was organized in 1985, and as it is in all clericals' strikes-- is pay equity. The university's contract proposal includes a "pay for performance" system--also known as merit pay. A union statement calls the plan "racist and sexist. Studies show that up to 90 percent of the pay gap between men and women with the same jobs is due to differences in merit pay. It is well documented that wage inequities based on race and sex existed at Columbia in the early 1980s, and they were a key reason why clerical workers organized in Local 2110." Union spokesperson Maida Rosenstein said, "Equity, fairness, justice--they [the bosses] just don't seem to understand that." --Shelley Ettinger MARYLAND NURSES STRIKE Nurses at three hospitals in Maryland are fighting back against staffing cuts, speed-up and the whole health-care- for-profit drive. In mid-October a total of about 620 nurses from the Pro fessional Staff Nurses'Association stag ed a 48-hour strike, which had near ly total support from the membership. More than 200 nurses rallied and picketed at Prince Georges Hospital Center in Cheverly on Oct. 18. Similar rallies were held at the two other facilities in Maryland where the union was on strike. Dimensions Healthcare System, a private corporation, manages the three hospitals. The nurses were scheduled to return to work the morning of Oct. 19. However, some of them found that their jobs had been reassigned to other workers, and they either did not have jobs or were shifted to other jobs that pay less. The union planned to protest this illegal retaliation against workers who exercised their legal right to strike at the National Labor Relations Board on Oct. 20. Union president Carol Bragg charged DHC with endangering patient safety by reducing the nurse-to-patient ratio in the interest of increasing profits. Bragg said, "The nurse-to- patient ratios are inadequate now to maintain the acuity of the patients, and DHC is proposing to reduce them even further." DHC euphemistically calls the staff cuts a "redesign" of responsibilities. --Malcolm Cummins AFL-CIO RALLIES VS. NAFTA The AFL-CIO staged a series of rallies across the country to oppose President Bill Clinton's push to expand NAFTA on a fast track. The first demonstration was in Philadelphia on Oct. 14. Some 300 people waved signs that demanded "No Fast Track--No More NAFTAs." In Philadelphia, and the next day at a rally on Wall Street in New York, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said NAFTA-type agreements are no good for workers in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, or the United States. He said only corporations gain from decreasing wages in any country. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt also spoke at the two rallies. He decried what he called "today's mean- spirited capitalists" and called for a more humane capitalism. He did not explain how to accomplish such an impossible task. --Joe Piette - 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. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytlab-10.24.97-23:10:05-8241