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| "Perspective from the ranks, for the ranks," is posted monthly by a
rank & file member of Teamsters Local 31.
***TABLE OF CONTENTS*** 1. Detroit Newspaper Strike/Lockout Passes Four
Year Mark
~~~~~NEWSFLASH~~~~~ Tuesday, July 13, 1999 Trustee Takes Over Meatpackers' Local By NANCY CLEELAND, Times Staff Writer A Teamsters local representing more than 1,200 meatpacking workers in eastern Washington state was placed under trusteeship Monday, less than a week after workers at a plant owned by IBP Inc. ended a bitter monthlong strike by narrowly approving a new contract. Teamsters spokesman Chip Roth said the unusual move--which substitutes leadership of the local with a person chosen by the Teamsters--was needed "to protect the integrity of the union contract with IBP and to ensure that members' grievances will be effectively addressed." He said the situation was considered "an emergency," a necessary condition for changing a local's leadership without a public hearing. An election for new officers of the local--held every three years--had been set for November. Now that election could be delayed for at least 18 months. The Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a dissident wing of the labor giant, charged the move was calculated to derail several strike leaders who had hoped to gain control of the local in November. The leaders were aligned with the TDU, which had a full-time organizer at the picket line throughout much of the strike at the plant in Walulla. "This is an attack on democracy," TDU spokesman Ken Paff said. "These workers didn't get the support of the international, and now the international is trying to strip them of their right to a democratic election." Roth, however, said the trusteeship "has nothing to do with politics. It would be totally unacceptable to allow the membership to go three months without adequate contract protections." Allen Hobart, secretary-treasurer of a Teamsters local in nearby Yakima, was appointed trustee. He had been called in to help with negotiations during the strike, after workers refused to deal with the secretary-treasurer of their own local. They said the local had not acted on complaints about hazardous working conditions for years. LA Times web site -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [editor's note: News stories are now posted on the ATA's Transport Topics web site. The web site is: http://www.ttnews.com In a story posted July 13 titled "Teamsters Rein in Another Local," Teamsters Local 556 is cited as the second Teamster local trusteed under the Hoffa administration. The article goes on to state that 80% of the local is comprised of IBP workers. The article also cites J. Allen Hobart, the Hoffa appointed trustee of Local 556, as saying the union was deeply divided there. Further, the article mentions that repairing those divisions will be difficult because the workers felt betrayed by their international union. Their strike was not originally supported by the IBT and ultimately the workers saw their pensions negotiated away. The article quotes Maria Martinez: "The workers' actions won us a wage increase. Our union officials' actions cost us our pension. We've been robbed." In defense to the allegation that the international took control of negotiations without supporting the workers, a teamster spokesperson said the trusteeship was requested by Local 556's Executive Board. Cutting through the double-speak of union officials, Ken Paff of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, said "The trusteeship was to prevent an election. In the election a few months ago, local members voted 9-1 for Leedham (over Hoffa). There's a (local) election set for October, and their flunky is set to lose it. How convenient." Thanks to THE RANK & FILE INFORMANT for this tip on the Transport Topics web site. I will be at liberty to give their web site address next month.] 1. 4-Year AnniversaryDetroit Newspaper Strike/Lockout Hello Jon - International Call to Action We need your help to defeat corporate attempts at "union cleansing." On Tuesday, July 13, 1999, union workers from Detroit's two daily newspapers will mark the 4th year of their labor struggle against the two largest newspaper chains in the United States. It was four years ago that more than 2,000 printers, Teamsters, pressmen, reporters, photographers and mailers went on strike against media giants Gannett and Knight Ridder, owners of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. These companies forced the strike through a long list of unfair labor practices, according to the National Labor Relations Board. And they betrayed their unionized workforce which had helped them reap huge profits of more than $1 million a week. On that hot, stormy day in July 1995, members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Communications Workers of America, and the Graphic Communications International Union drew a line in the sand. They would stand and fight for fair wages, decent contracts, and bargaining rights all workers deserve. They have been heroic in their long, bitter struggle, much to their employers' surprise. And even now, with more than 1,000 of those workers still illegally locked-out from their jobs, the newspaper workers continue to struggle onward at the printing plant gates, at the business offices, and in the corporate board rooms. A major result from their actions and persistence is a hefty decrease in newspaper circulation (down over 400,000 Sunday copies from pre-strike sales levels). Also, advertising lineage and ad revenue income remain below pre-strike levels. Financial losses for the newspapers are nearing the billion dollar mark! And the loss of community trust and readership is immeasurable. The companies are also losing in the courts. In one major decision on August 27, 1998, the NLRB ruled unanimously -- both Democrat and Republican members -- that the newspapers were guilty of provoking and prolonging the strike. The board ordered immediate reinstatement of all workers with back pay. The newspapers ignored these orders and filed an appeal to further delay justice in Detroit. We need your help to observe this anniversary. It is our plan to deliver the most emphatic message to every Gannett and Knight Ridder newspaper in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. The actual task will be as easy as making a telephone call. I assure you both newspaper giants will be scratching their corporate heads before July 13, 1999 ends. Please contact Dennis Nazelli, locked-out newspaper worker through e-mail (denazelli@aol.com) for details and an assignment. Help us stick it (again!) to Gannett and Knight Ridder. In solidarity - Dennis Nazelli
2. Reports concerning the IBP strike settlement: June 26, 1999 ***I Beef with the Bosses*** Meat-Plant Strike Is Latest Case of Immigrants Packing Picket Line By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK WALLULA, Wash. -- Khamkong Baninthivong, a Laotian immigrant who has quietly worked for 13 and a half years as a meat trimmer at the IBP plant here in eastern Washington, voted to strike because she feels her wage -- $8.28 an hour, 10 cents more than her hourly wage at the plant seven years ago -- is simply too low. Josefina Alfaro, originally from El Salvador, a U.S. citizen as of two years ago, voted to strike IBP, the world's largest producer of beef and pork products, because she thinks the union will win. "But even if not," said the 45-year-old Mrs. Alfaro, a meat cutter walking the picket line, "it's worth the risk because there are other jobs out there. A lot of places -- hospitals, plants -- they're all looking for people." A strong economy gives some workers the confidence to dig in on labor issues. And Almir Biscevic, 23, a Bosnian Muslim who fled his war-wracked country with his family three years ago, voted for the strike earlier this month even though he was not quite sure how it all worked. "When I first heard, I was, 'Strike? What is a strike?"' said Biscevic in the English he is struggling to master. "But now I am for it. There's a lot wrong inside that plant. There's not safety. There's not respect." What began as a wildcat strike earlier this month at the plant, where about 90 percent of the 1,500 workers are immigrants, has quickly mushroomed into a test of wills between IBP and a feisty union whose action is now sanctioned by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On one level, the work stoppage, approved by a vote of 847-291 in early June, is a notable example of community organizing among workers who cannot even communicate in a common tongue. Rallies here have featured speeches in English and Spanish, with pauses for the words to be translated into Lao, Vietnamese and Serbo-Croatian. As Maria Martinez, a strike leader, put it: "It's not so hard to get people together, because 'Enough is enough' is something you can understand in any language." But the successful start of the strike also highlights some larger factors clearly at work here in Wallula, including the receptivity that many immigrants feel toward union activity and their growing confidence that, with a strong economy and many employers anxious for workers, the potential benefits of pressing for better wages and working conditions outweigh any risks. Nor is it an isolated example. This week, for instance, workers at the nation's largest textile complex, Fieldcrest Cannon in Kannapolis, N.C., voted to unionize, according to unofficial returns, a sweeping victory for organized labor after unsuccessful efforts stretching across decades, and one that leaders there attributed in part to the growing number of immigrant workers at the plant. And earlier this year, winning the biggest unionization drive in half a century, the Service Employees International Union earned the right to represent nearly 75,000 home-care workers in the Los Angeles area. Many of those workers, who care for the elderly and disabled, are immigrants. "Some of the most significant victories labor has seen in the past 10 years have been among immigrant workers," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, pointing to the recent votes as well as ones by asbestos-removal workers and janitors in several big cities. "One of the reasons is simply that immigrants still tend to live in communities with others who work with them," she said. "Most white workers today who aren't recent immigrants, they're much more scattered in terms of where they live. In that sense, they're much harder to organize." Many of the workers come from countries with some tradition of union activity and may themselves have been leaders of such efforts, said Fernando Gapasin, an expert on immigrant labor at the University of California at Los Angeles. "Some of these workers are very heads-up about how to organize." But, he said, some major unions, with leaders who came of age in battles where there were no language barriers among workers, have been slow to respond to the changing dynamics posed by the influx of immigrant workers. Gapasin cited that as one major reason why union membership overall has continued to decline in this country, to under 14 percent of the workforce today from about 35 percent in the mid-1950s. "Unions are certainly developing strategies to deal with multicultural workforces, but many have been slow to do so," Gapasin said. "It is a weakness for labor." Some of those problems are in evidence at the strike here in Wallula, an agricultural town near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. The action clearly began among the rank-and-file, and was endorsed only belatedly by Teamsters leaders higher up the organizational chain, who waited for several days to sanction an official strike vote. When a Teamsters official showed up on June 6, two days after several hundred workers had staged a walkout at the plant, a crowd of angry IBP employees unleashed a torrent of complaints about what they felt was a lack of support from union leadership. The heckling grew so bad that at one point the official, Al Hobart, secretary-treasurer of Local 760 of Yakima, responded in kind. "One of the major issues in your negotiations has been respect," he told the workers, according to a report in The Tri-City Herald, the newspaper here. "You cannot get what you don't give. You have shown me very little today." Respect is what many workers here say they do want to gain from their strike, and many pointed to what they said were abysmal working conditions at the plant, a hulking concrete complex set amid the farmlands, where hundreds of cattle are shipped in for slaughter daily and the powerful smell of dead meat hangs in the air. The plant, one of 48 around the country owned by IBP, turns out meat products for human and pet consumption, and also by-products of the slaughter that are used for soap and glue. Many of the workers on the picket line complained not only of low pay, but also of unsanitary conditions and injuries they suffered on line like cuts, and hand and joint pains stemming from what they said was constant pressure to speed up production. "The chain, it turns very, very fast," said Kien Nguyen, a 55-year-old flank-steak trimmer, referring to the conveyor belt on which pieces of meat come to his station. "Too fast. The safety is very low." Nguyen, originally from Vietnam, used to work as a newspaper deliverer in Orange County, Calif., and came to Wallula two years ago when a friend told him about jobs available at the plant here. He makes $8.28 an hour. A 40-year-old Bosnian man, who came here as a refugee just a few months ago and was one of the few striking workers who would not give his name, said: "I know what is hard work. Here, they treat you like a dog. If you get hurt they give you pills and they say, 'What, you can't handle it?"' A spokesman for IBP at its corporate headquarters in Dakota Dunes, S.D., Don Willoughby, said the workers' complaints about conditions were "typical union rhetoric" used as part of the bargaining process for higher wages. The company has offered a $1.57 an hour pay increase over the next 4 1/2 years, to a plant-wide average of $10.41, with 82 cents per-hour effective immediately, but the union negotiating committee has rejected the deal. Willoughby said the company paid scrupulous attention to safety concerns, though he turned down a reporter's request for a tour of the plant, which is running on partial operations with about 400 nonstriking workers and supervisors. "It's nothing against your writing, but our experiences with members of the news media have been less than satisfactory when we've given tours," he said. "People like to visualize the cow out in the pasture and the steak on the plate, but they really don't want to visualize what goes on in-between." The company did make six nonstriking workers available for interviews, in the presence of a company personnel manager. All said the plant was safe and the company fair, but none would allow their names to be used for fear, they said, of union retaliation. In some ways, union activity among immigrant workers is nothing new, especially among immigrants. "This is almost 'The Jungle' revisited," said Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist at the University of California at Berkeley, referring to Upton Sinclair's classic expose of abuses in the meat industry. "At the turn of the century, immigrant workers speaking Slavic, Russian and Polish were at the core of organizing efforts," he said, "and at the end of the century it's immigrant workers speaking Spanish, Laotian, Vietnamese." The company is already looking for new workers, but many workers on strike pointed to local economic conditions in predicting they would prevail with a better contract. "How are they going to replace 1,000 people just like that?" said 38-year-old Guadalupe Alvarado, a cutter who makes $10.43 an hour after 14 years at the plant. "It takes a year to really train someone. It's not easy to replace us. They know that. They won't admit it, but they know it." ***************** ***II. IBP Strike Over*** TriCity Herald - July 8 Frustrated IBP workers end strike By Genoa Sibold-Cohn and Annette Cary Herald staff writers IBP workers ended a monthlong strike shouting in frustration Wednesday and prepared to head back to the Wallula meat packing plant. Most of the 1,300 union workers got a $1.82 an hour raise over the next five years. But some longtime employees claim cuts in retirement benefits will pay for the higher wages. "Now that this new contract has been approved, I'm going to be losing money," said Lewis Myers, who said he has worked at the plant for 1912 years and served on the union negotiating committee. "I was building something for the future, and now there is nothing." Union members narrowly voted at the Wednesday meeting in Pasco to accept the company's latest contract proposal. There were 276 votes to accept the contract and 258 votes opposing the company's offer. The company requested that slaughter, rendering and hides workers who have been striking report to work today. Employees who have been working during the strike also are asked to report to work today. All other workers should report to work Friday. But union members said they won't be returning to the plant until Monday. That way, they can walk in together, said Maria Martinez, the plant's chief union steward. IBP spokesman Gary Mickelson in Dakota Dunes, S.D., said those who wait may be out of a job. "The strike is over," he said. "We expect people to report to work as directed. And if they don't, we will take whatever action is appropriate." However, he said the company was glad to end the first work stoppage the plant has had since the company bought it in the 1970s and looks forward to "five years of labor peace at Pasco." The decision to vote on IBP's proposal at Wednesday's meeting was a surprise to some workers, who said the meeting had been advertised only as a discussion. That led to an angry exchange with union officials who were conducting the meeting. Martinez charged that Teamsters officials had negotiated the contract without talking to the workers or advising them of the plan to vote. Frustration heightened at 2:30 p.m. when Jon Rabine, a Teamsters vice president based in Seattle, and Al Hobart, secretary-treasurer of Local 760 out of Yakima, spoke about the company's proposal, which included discontinuing the company's retirement plan. After a shouting match between union members and the Teamsters officials over the proposal, 20 police patrol cars took up a watch outside the Trade, Recreation and Agricultural Center, where the meeting was being held. When the votes were counted at 5 p.m., Rabine and Hobart were booed off the property, as workers chanted, "Lejos!" or "Go away!" Rabine said he was disappointed the company didn't pay more attention to the workers' proposal. "This was a close vote," he said. "Emotions were high." Although the workers had wanted a better contract than they were offered, some of the union members said they couldn't afford to stay off the job any longer. Jaime Navarrete, an IBP worker for 23 years, said, "More people wanted to go back to work instead of piling up their bills. We didn't have enough people to stay on the picket line." Workers received only $55 a week in strike benefits from the union. "We basically got the shaft, but I hope this does something for new employees coming in. They shouldn't be walking over them so much," Navarrete said. IBP's Wallula plant employs 1,500 people and has an annual payroll of $37 million. Under the new contract, starting pay at the plant is $8.50 - a $1.50 increase from the previous agreement. Processing workers, who make up the majority of the IBP work force, will receive an immediate $1.32 an hour raise if they were hired after 1982. The slaughter and hides departments will be paid $1.07 an hour more this year. And maintenance employees are due for a $1.24 raise immediately. All departments will get additional raises totaling 50 cents an hour over the next four years. The contract also includes a clause on worker dignity that says "mutual respect and individual dignity in the workplace will be and must be recognized in the workplace." Another clause calls for expansion of the plant safety committee, adding more union-selected members. The prior company proposal, rejected by the union last month, would have given all workers $1.57 an hour over the next five years. Employees hired before 1982 will get bonuses up to $2,100 over the next two months in addition to small raises. Martinez said some longtime employees plan to quit now that the pension plan has been discontinued. The pension plan has been replaced with a 401(k) plan that employees can contribute up to 6 percent of their pay to. IBP will match half of that contribution. But Martinez said she won't be leaving the plant. "These people have stuck behind me," she said. "I'm going to go back." ******************** Friday, July 9, 1999 **III For Meatpackers, Walkout Was Step Forward and Back** Labor: Immigrant workers broke ground but failed to win key demands. By NANCY CLEELAND, Times Staff Writer LA Times ALULLA, Wash.--Outside the slaughterhouse, the picket line was a parade of pain: A man missing three fingers. A woman's face sliced by a badly healed scar. A veteran worker limping, his hips thrown into an unnatural tilt by a fall on the fat-slicked concrete floor. Nearly all the strikers marching in the foul breeze were immigrants and refugees, and they wanted the world to know how bad it was inside the plant, one of 11 beef factories owned by industry giant IBP Inc. They shoved their hands forward, showing how their joints creaked like old, rusted hinges, tracing the cuts made in surgery or by their own slipped knives. "We are no better than the machines," said one worker. "When they can't use us anymore, they throw us away." A month ago, bolstered by what now seems a naive belief in the power of their own stories, and without the initial support of their own Teamsters local, the workers walked out, taking on the largest meat-processing company in the world. Today they return to work disappointed, after narrowly approving a new contract that fails to address several key demands, including the right to stop the production line when worker or food safety is threatened. The company defends its safety record, saying it has spent millions of dollars on safety equipment. "We were fighting against a giant," said Melquiadez Pereyra, who led the June 4 procession out of the plant. "We couldn't do it by ourselves." The Walulla strike, which hobbled plant operations for a month, was the most recent and dramatic indication of a changing dynamic between the large corporations that dominate meatpacking and immigrants who do most of the production work. "I see it as kind of a wake-up call," said Mark Grey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa, who has studied the shift toward immigrant labor in meatpacking for more than a decade. "If it's gotten to the point where a largely Latino work force is willing to take on the company over safety, it shows the nature of their relationship has changed." But its outcome also illustrates the difficulties such workers face in bargaining with global businesses that can shift production from one factory to another while waiting out a strike. Although about two-thirds of the plant's 1,300 employees maintained the picket line, the strike had no noticeable impact on IBP's bottom line, said John McMillin, an analyst with Prudential Securities. The publicly held company, with 42,000 employees and a product line that ranges from hides to deli meats, had nearly $13 billion in sales last year. John Rabine, a Teamsters vice president who stepped into the negotiations after striking workers refused to deal with their local representative, said the resulting contract was disappointing but that "the level of expectation was probably beyond what was attainable. "The agreement raised starting wages from $7 to $8.50 per hour but cut the company's retirement contribution. IBP also agreed to expand its worker-management safety committee and added language recognizing "that mutual respect and individual dignity in the workplace will be and must be recognized." IBP executives have dismissed most employees' claims as "strike rhetoric" and defended the plant's safety record as improving and better than most. However, the company, and its Walulla plant in particular, have been cited numerous times by federal and state regulators for failing to implement employee and food safety measures. In June 1998, Washington state health and safety investigators cited IBP for serious violations, including failure to maintain dry flooring, which could result in falls. An earlier inspection cited the company for failure to maintain safety guard on equipment and platforms. In November, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors issued a notice of enforcement action after inspectors at the Walulla plant found "a pattern of problems" that could affect food safety. USDA spokeswoman Beth Gaston would not elaborate on the problems, which were corrected by IBP, but said the agency remained concerned and sent bilingual compliance officers to interview striking workers last month after they complained that meat had not been cleaned after falling on the floor. Several labor activists, attorneys and university researchers who have followed the transition of meatpacking to a high-speed production process over the last two decades compared current injury rates with those described by Upton Sinclair in his gruesome expose of the industry in Chicago nearly a century ago. "If you work in the meat-processing industry for any amount of time, you will get hurt," said Greg Denier of United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents workers at many meat plants, including half a dozen owned by IBP. "And for the most part, it isn't necessary." Industrywide, about a third of U.S. meatpacking workers were hurt on the job last year, a rate far higher than that of any other manufacturing industry--but better than the 45% rate of a decade ago. Most injuries are musculoskeletal, stemming from the hundreds of small, repetitive motions workers make every hour on the production line while whittling down sides of beef to small, easily packaged pieces. IBP spokesman Don Willoughby conceded that slaughtering and meat cutting remain ugly and dangerous jobs and that IBP has found it increasingly difficult to fill them as the U.S. labor market tightens and the federal government cracks down on illegal immigration. Industrywide, employee turnover is greater than 50% a year and could be as high as 80%, said Grey, the professor who studied the meatpacking industry. IBP executives said their employee churn is lower, although they would not provide numbers. Spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company has reduced turnover at the Walulla plant by a third in recent years. To fill the chronic job vacancies, IBP recruits heavily in northern Mexico and immigrant-rich cities such as Santa Ana. It also draws from refugee populations, most recently from Bosnia. Emboldened by the labor shortage and encouraged by a handful of Latinos with more than 10 years' experience at the plant, workers in Walulla were ready to take action June 4, when a protest over fast line speeds grew into a spontaneous walkout. "At first you feel frustrated because you don't know English, you don't know where to go, and the government moves very slowly," said Pereyra, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico, who has worked at IBP for 11 years. "After a while, you start to see that you have rights and there are laws. "Although workers at Walulla asked for higher wages and benefits, the central issue--according to dozens of strikers interviewed--was production-line speed and staffing. The combination of those two factors determines how much time a worker has to handle each piece of meat. During normal operations, for example, Maria Saucedo said she has about 30 seconds to cut tendons and trim fat and bone from a 30-pound round cut, part of the upper portion of the rear leg of a cow. But when the eight-person crew on her line is short-staffed--as it often is these days--remaining workers must cut faster or the meat will pile up at their stations. At those speeds, workers--who wear heavy aprons, hard hats and steel-mesh safety gloves--don't have time to take the frequent, short breaks recommended by ergonomics experts to avoid repetitive motion injuries. "We're supposed to change our gloves every 20 minutes, because they get wet and cold and covered with blood," Saucedo said. "But sometimes we go three or four hours before we can do that." The fast pace and infrequent breaks put workers at extreme risk for injuries, from contorted "trigger fingers" to diminished strength. Many complain they can no longer button their shirts, squeeze their hands into a fist or carry a bucket of water. "I run hot water on my hands for half an hour in the morning just to open them," said Cuban-born Irene Bravo, who has had eight operations on her shoulder and hands in her six years at IBP's Walulla plant. "Where can I go now? Who's going to give me a job?" Fast line speeds also have led to traumatic injuries. Rosa Tafoya said meat was piling up at her station when a piece slipped toward the floor. As she grabbed for it, she sliced a three-inch gash into her cheek. After a night in the local emergency room, Tafoya was back on the line the next day at 6 a.m. Several workers complained they were unable to take bathroom breaks, and as a result, had soiled themselves. The production line shuts down twice during a normal shift--for one 15-minute rest and a 30-minute lunch break. The workday at the Walulla plant was recently reduced to seven hours and 56 minutes. Workers said the change was made to avoid a second 15-minute break. IBP said only that it was the result of "an ongoing disagreement over the interpretation of a state law governing employee breaks." IBP spokesman Mickelson said industrial engineers set safe staffing and line speeds after observing the production process and that those safe speeds are always maintained. "Employee injury and illness prevention is important to IBP from both a human and economic standpoint,"Mickelson said in a written response to questions. "We do not want to do anything to endanger our employees." Slowing the production-line speed while maintaining current staffing levels would almost certainly reduce musculoskeletal injuries in meatpacking, said Don Cochran, a University of Nebraska industrial engineering professor who is helping to write new federal ergonomics standards for the industry. But government regulation of those speeds is unlikely, he added. "That's a very touchy issue. The line speed is an economic decision. It's a very competitive industry, and the profit margins are very small." Indeed, meatpacking is typified by thin margins and ruthless competition. "The average pretax margin for IBP is about 2%, compared to most other food companies I follow, where the margin is about five times that size, Prudential's McMillin said. "Certainly there is pressure to run a faster line," he said. "They're selling a commodity, and at the end of the day there's not a lot of leeway room. If they don't have low production costs, these people are going to be out of a job altogether. IBP, originally Iowa Beef Packers, grew from a single meatpacking plant
in that state to a global meat-processing giant with 48 plants that turn
out everything from hides to tallow for glue--all by pioneering the modern
meat production line. The company divided a job once performed by skilled
butchers into hundreds of distinct operations that could be carried out
by unskilled, low-wage workers. Inefficient competitors--such as Columbia
Foods, which owned the Walulla plant before IBP bought it in 1976--were
quickly forced out of the market. Over a painful two decades, the industry
gelled into a handful of major players, led by IBP. "IBP put the
industry where it is today," said Grey. "They introduced these efficiencies
and these incredibly low profit margins, where the only way they can make
money is in the aggregate. They were the first to target immigrants and
refugee populations for labor. "It's just a matter of time before these
[labor] issues began to pop up," he said. "In many ways, the things they
started are now coming home to roost."
3. Turmoil Continues at Overnite Strike Update #12 Overnite Endangers Workers Company Scab's Truck Commits Hit & Run Sends Organizer to Hospital (Washington DC, July 8) Overnite Transportation is apparently instructing its scabs to drive Overnite's trucks at an irresponsible speed as they leave the terminal gate. In Memphis, an Overnite scab drove his Overnite truck at a high rate of speed out the Memphis terminal gate, jumped a curb and hit a Teamster organizer. The truck sped off without stopping. The organizer was brought to the hospital. His arm in a sling and he is cut up, but he is now back on the strike line. Close calls have occurred in Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Kansas City, as well as the accident in Memphis. The police have taken a report on the Memphis incident and there is reportedly a warrant out for the Memphis scab's arrest. Despite repeated requests by the strikers for Overnite to instruct the scabs to leave the terminals at a safe rate of speed, Overnite is doing nothing to correct the situation. Overnite Transportation is a fully owned subsidiary of Union Pacific
Corporation.
Strike Update #13 - Overnite Strike Gains National Proportions Four More Overnite Terminals Strike Minneapolis/St. Paul, Toledo, Marietta and Milwaukee 11 Overnite Terminals Now On Strike Strike Enters 5th Day (Washington DC -- July 9) The Teamsters Union has received word today that Overnite terminals in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Toledo, Marietta and Milwaukee went on an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike. This makes a total of eleven Overnite terminals currently on strike. "Overnite's self-inflicted labor unrest has brought on individual unfair labor practice strikes that have now gained national proportions," said James P. Hoffa, President of the Teamsters Union. "The evidence is overwhelming that the Teamsters at Overnite want the Company to cease its unfair labor practices. My advice to Overnite is to begin by bargaining in good faith when the negotiators reconvene on July 13th in Chicago." Strike Background On Monday, July 5, Overnite workers in Kansas City, Memphis, Atlanta, Indianapolis, and North Atlanta began an unfair labor practice strike. On Thursday, July 8, Overnite workers in Miami and New Orleans began
an unfair labor practice strike.
Overnite Transportation Slammed Again In Major Labor Board Decision Seven Overnite Terminals Granted Bargaining Orders Company Charged with Massive Unfair Labor Practices (Washington DC, July 15) A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge has issued a decision against Overnite Transportation, a subsidiary of Union Pacific, for massive unfair labor practices and has ordered the Company to begin bargaining with the Teamsters at an additional seven terminals. "For years, Overnite has denied to the press and the public that it has committed massive unfair labor practice violations," said James P. Hoffa, President of the Teamsters Union. "Overnite seemed to think that if the lie is big enough, told often enough, for long enough, the press and the public are going to believe them. This NLRB decision shatters Overnite's credibility." "Additionally, this decision, coming as it does on the heels of the unfair labor practice strikes across the country, vindicates the 1,700 Overnite workers that shut this company down all of last week." The seven Overnite terminals that were granted bargaining orders employ approximately 545 workers. A bargaining order requires the Company to recognize and bargain with the Teamsters as the sole representative of the workers at the site covered by the order. The seven terminals are: Bensalem, Pennsylvania Dayton, Ohio Nitro, West Virginia Nashville, Tennessee Richfield, Ohio Parkersburg, West Virginia Rockford, Illinois Additionally, Overnite was cited in the decision for massive unfair
labor practices.
OVERNITE Transportation Union Pacific's Anti-Union Puppet ON STRIKE FOR WORKER JUSTICE! Kansas City, MO; Memphis, TN; Atlanta, GA; Indianapolis, IN; Miami, FL; New Orleans, LA; Toledo, OH; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN; No. Atlanta & Marietta, GA. GO TEAMSTERS! OVERNITE (Leo Suggs) is G-U-I-L-T-Y of UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES in violation of FEDERAL LABOR LAWS! Today, Overnite workers in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Toledo, Marietta and Milwaukee began an unfair labor practice strike. At this time approximately 1,500 Overnite workers are on the ULP strike lines at the eleven (11) terminals. Atlanta, Kansas City, Memphis and Minneapolis/St. Paul are four of the Company's six largest terminals. Overnite Transportation is a fully owned subsidiary of Union Pacific Corporation. Currently the Teamster representation at Overnite is approximately 40% of Overnite's 8,200 drivers and dock workers. Twenty-one Overnite terminals are certified and at the negotiation table, four terminals are awaiting certification which Overnite is appealing and 13 terminals are bargaining order locations which Overnite is also appealing. =============== 4. THE RANK & FILE INFORMANT ....comments on Yellow Freight Yellow Freight's Non-Union Conspiracy Grows Again! With the recent purchase of JEVIC Transportation, YELLOW CORP. now has in place four regional carrier systems that blanket the U.S., except for a few upper midwest locations. JEVIC has 7 established terminals, but most of the opertion has been based on "enroute" pickups and deliveries by road drivers, paid on a milage plus "per stop" basis. With this aquisition, YELLOW claims it can better compete with other regional carriers, such as the non-union Con-Ways, American Freightways, and the partially unionized USFreightways. Apparently YELLOW Corp. management has been unable to come up with a plan for next-day and 2nd-day service with their unionized YELLOW FREIGHT SYSTEMS, with such a large terminal system, such as ROADWAY and C-F has done, and YELLOW will be borrowing $200 million to pay for JEVIC, based in Delanco, NJ. It remains to be seen if YELLOW will funnel freight into JEVIC'S system, like C-F has done, and the latest word "in the streets" is many of the JEVIC drivers are talking "UNION!" More About YELLOW FREIGHT To learn more about "The Great" YELLOW FREIGHT, read what Daniel Somerson has to say at http://truckingsolutions.com/ [contact information for THE RANK & FILE INFORMANT web site in August's issue] 5. Randy Olson Sues UPS and Teamsters Local 70 in Federal Court Contact: Charles R . Engel theshaman@earthlink.net The Steward by (steward2@aol.com) Plebeian Tribune Press http://thesteward.hypenet.com Press Release Law Suit Filed Against UPS and Teamsters Local 70 in Federal Court Informational Rally and Protest - Tuesday, July 13, 1999, 7:30 to 9 AM Oakland, Ca. - A Lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court against United Parcel Service and I.B.T. Vice-President Chuck Mack's Teamsters Local 70. San Francisco Attorney Christopher Katzenbach son of Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, filed suit on behalf of Teamster Randy Olson, Chuck Mack's opponent in Local 70's 1995 Secretary-Treasure election. The suit alleges that UPS fired Mr. Olson because of his union activities in aiding his African American co-workers in Executive Director Shannon Reeves' Oakland NAACP initiated class action discrimination law suit, recently settled against UPS. The suit further alleges that Teamsters Local 70 intentionally breached their duty of fair representation in their handling of Mr. Olson's firing. They further allege that this was done in retaliation for Mr. Olson's challenging, open and sustained political opposition to I.B.T. President James P. Hoffa and I.BT Vice-President Chuck Mack. Mr. Olson openly campaigned for Mr. Hoffa's opponents Ron Carey and Tom Leedham and the Pro-Reform Slate. An Informational Rally and Protest will be held Tuesday, July 13, 1999,
7:30 to 9 AM at UPS by the Employee Entrance Gate at 8400 Pardee
Drive Oakland, Ca. For Information Call: Chuck Engel at: e-mail (theshaman@earthlink.net).
Randy Olson Web Site: http://www.ebdir.net/olson/ 6. AGITPROP NEWS ITEMS Some Good News at last! Maybe this time they will get there investigation done correctly and issue injunctions against employer, for actions during organizing campaign and the end result with termination of all employees ... Evidence presented in appeal to Washington, DC -- should allow this to be done in a timely manner. Last week the DC NLRB ordered the regional NLRB to reopen and reinvestigate the entire case concerning SuperValu's Champaign, Illinois division. We will send more specific details as soon as we have them. All drivers have now been terminated and have received their severance. Brisk, the scab company, cannot keep or hire enough drivers to cover the work, and are doinng a terrible job with what they have. The retailers are screaming! Now we're going to scream some more! Jennifer Dinsmore SV Workers Support Group PO Box 2396 Danville, IL.
61834-2396
jarc103@juno.com
New Labor/Arts Video Teamster Victory Mural Length: 25:15 To commemorate the historic 1997 Teamster strike victory over United Parcel Service, Local 705 at Teamster City in Chicago commissions internationally respected labor muralist Mike Alewitz to paint a mural measuring 130 feet by 20 feet. Alewitz, Director of the Labor Art and Mural Project at the Labor Education Center, Rutgers University, leads a crew of volunteers in creating "Teamster Power/El Poder de los Teamsters." He also talks about the strike victory and the mural at a stewards' meeting and before delegates to a national Jobs with Justice convention in Chicago. The video shows Alewitz and crew working on the powerful, exuberant mural. Picketing teamsters chant and the voice of Ron Carey is heard rallying strikers. Alewitz describes the imagery of the mural, which is framed by large portraits of Albert and Lucy Parsons, early heroes of the U.S. labor movement, and features the other Haymarket martyrs, leaders of the 1934 Minneapolis teamster strike, and a striker driven UPS truck clutching in its jaws a bloody tentacle torn from the monster of capitalism. Alewitz explains the significance of Teamster history and the union's importance today. A socially engaged artist who has painted murals in Nicaragua, and Iraq, as well as across the United States and at Chernobyl, Alewitz also tells how he got his start and why he makes the kind of art he does. To order, send $20 check or money order to: S. Dalber 5012 N. California Ave. Chicago, Il 60625 From: Larry Duncan, lduncan@igc.org --------------------------------------------------- New Video Activists Network Website Announcing the updated new version of the Video Activists Network's website. We will continue to build on it and know that it will be a valuable resource. Please visit the site and tell us what you think - Please link to this site and encourage others to do so as well. Thank you, Jeff Whispered Media <whisper@energy-net.org>
WHERE: Seattle, for the WTO (World Trade Organization) Seattle Round WHY: The WTO, a group of primarily Multinational Corporation representatives, is responsible for gutting labor and environmental regulations which have taken decades to win and have cost many lives. This is the first (and maybe last, depending on actions taken to show popular outrage) time the WTO is meeting in the US. MORE: Begun as GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO has become an elusive, secretive body, with absolutely no accountabiility to people anywhere in the world. CONTACT: Details are currently being worked on in many areas. Local contacts for information and to help find accomodations will be announced in a future AGITprop Newsletter. A toll-free number that may provide some help is People for Fair Trade at 1-877-STOPWTO From: John F Ruhland <bh650@scn.org>
Workers and Revolutionaries: The Jewish Labor Movement Exhibit Opening in Chicago, July 29th You are cordially invited to the opening night of a special exhibit coming to Chicago's Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies and staying from July 29 thru November 28. -- Workers and Revolutionaries: -- -- The Jewish Labor Movement -- Mike Perry, Chair of the Chicago Jewish Labor Committee and Education Director of AFSCME District Council 31, will be the Guest Speaker on opening night. WHEN: Thursday, July 29 / Reception 5:30 pm, Program 6 pm WHERE: 618 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago RSVP: (312) 322-1747 -- Admission is free, but reservations are required. From: "ANDREW H. LEE" <leea@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu> ----------------------------- Zapatista BIG NOISE FILMS AND THE MEDIA BOUTIQUE ANNOUNCE THE VIDEO RELEASE OF ZAPATISTA! At last, the definitive look at the Zapatista uprising is available on video to individuals and institutions. Copies of ZAPATISTA! can be ordered off of our secure web-site: www.bignoisefilms.com or by calling toll-free 877-773-3773. ZAPATISTA! is the definitive look at the uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. It is the story of how a few thousand Mayan peasants have held the entire Mexican army at bay for five years, and of how they have transformed the political culture of Mexico forever. Filmed behind the lines of battle, it is the account of a guerrilla struggle unlike any other. With narration by Darryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Geronimo Pratt Ji Jaga, interviews with Subcomandante Marcos, Noam Chomsky as well as rank and file Zapatistas and American activists, music from Rage Against the Machine and Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and an agile, multilayered editing style, ZAPATISTA! translates this ancient story of resistance into the language of popular culture. All profits from ZAPATISTA! will return to the people of Chiapas in the form of humanitarian aid, providing much needed food and medical supplies to the indigenous communities. This Week in History 1097 - Capture of Jerusalem (first Crusade) 10,000 massacred, in the traditional christian manner. 1835 - Welfare Bums?: Children strike at Paterson, New Jersey for 11-hour day & six day week. With the help of adults, they win a compromise settlement of a 69 hour work week. 1877 - Great Railroad Strike begins, eventually spreading from West Virginia to cover the whole US, leaving over 100 dead & thousands of rail cars destroyed. 1892 - Homestead Steel Mill strike begins in Pennsylvania, leading to large-scale battles between workers & Pinkerton agents. http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~wgrant/1890s/carnegie/strike.html 1905 - "Wobblies" (Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)), radical union,
founding convention begins, Brand's Hall, in Chicago, Illinois. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/
1916 - Germany: 50,000 workers stage one day protest strike against trial of Karl Leibnecht. 1917 - Bisbee, Arizona IWW miner strike.
http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/iww/
1917 - US: 50,000 lumberjacks strike for 8-hour day. 1917 - Beginning of "deportation" of IWW (Industrial Workers of
the World) miners from Bisbee, Arizona by vigilantes into the Sonoran desert.
http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/iww/
1934 - US: Beginning of the San Francisco General Strike. 127,000 workers
participate. A longshoreman's strike spreads to become a two-day general
strike paralyzing the area, leading to a successful settlement.
http://www.shapingsf.org/labor/genstrike/genstrike.html
1951 - Dashiell Hammett sentenced to six months imprisonment for refusing to cooperate with anti-communist witchhuntinquiry. President of the League of American Writers, 1942, & Civil Rights Congress of New York, 1946-47. ________________________________________ Oxymorons: Act naturally Resident alien Airline Food Government organization Alone together Business ethics Butt Head Military Intelligence "Now, then ..." Passive aggression Clearly misunderstood Peace force Pretty ugly Working vacation Religious tolerance Microsoft Works -------------------------------------------------- Student Strike Continues A student strike has shut down Latin America's largest university, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), since April 20. Student strikers are fighting a tuition increase that represents another step in the underfunding and privatization of most public services in Mexico. Please see the following webpages for links, articles and photos on the movement, and even a live online hookup to pirate radio "KE-HUELGA"! Articles and photos http://www.gratisweb.com/jsimer/unam.htm Pirate radio KE-HUELGA: http://kehuelga.dyn.cheapnet.net/ For comments or questions, write: jsimer@hotmail.com From: Jeremy Simer <jsimer@hotmail.com> -------------------------------- 1999 6th Annual INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL At Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco (between 24th & 25th St.) Co-sponsored and Supported By The Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts The San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU, SEIU Local 535, SEIU Local 250 and many other organizations. LaborFest is an annual cultural labor arts festival to commemorate the July 1934 General Strike in San Francisco. The festival runs from July 5 to July 31, 1999 For Further Information Call (415)642-8066 Fax (415)695-1369 Email: laborfest@hotmail.com Web Page www.LaborFest.net Or Write LaborFest P.O.Box 40983 San Francisco,CA 94140 From: Steve Zeltzer <lvpsf@labornet.org> ---------------------------------- Fellow Workers The Ani DeFranco/Utah Phillips CD, "Fellow Workers" has hit the stores. It is somewhat different from their previous collaboration, "The Future Didn't Go Anywhere", and in my humble opinion it is a better effort all around. It still focusses on the story telling of Utah Phillips except that Ani DeFranco also performs on some of the tracks. The background hip-hop music that she lays down under Utah's stories on some of the tracks is a bit more complex and more effective than it was on "The Future...". On other tracks, she makes effective use of folk music, soft jazz, and a sort of blues boogie-woogie style to serve as the floor for Phillips' stories. In fact, DeFranco is the only artist I am aware of right now that is exploring both hip-hop and folk styles, simultaneously. By using sounds from the folk and African-American traditions, she is articulating an updated version of what Phillips refers to as "people's music". The sessions were recorded in front of a live studio audience at the Kingsway studio in Austin, TX. There is an intimate, coffee house type of environment without the pretensions that sometimes come from that sort of setting. This is enhanced by Phillips ability to talk with people instead of at them. His stories/songs are a bit more focussed than they were on "The Future..." which adds a certain urgency to the effort. Most of the songs are DeFranco/Phillips originals but you also get some of the old IWW standbys like 'Joe Hill' (an instrumental version on the first track and a vocal cut later) and 'Pie In the Sky'. All of the stories/songs are true to the IWW tradition and the union is mentioned directly on some of the tracks. The sequence of the stories reads like a history of the labor movement. One track deals with the Ludlow Massacre, another with Lawrence, etc. The "Lawrence" track leads right into the "Bread and Roses" cut which gives a sense of continuity of struggle. What can you say about a CD that begins with "Joe Hill" and ends with "The Internationale"? excerpts From: Mike Fekula <fmtico@hotmail.com> --------------------------------------- Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email: The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal Service will be attempting to bilk email users out of alternate postage fees. Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5 cent surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the federal government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureaucratic efficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. One congressman, Tony Schnell (r) has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the government's proposed email charges. Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge "a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th 1999 Editorial). Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away! Send this e-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and tell all your friends and relatives to write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P. It will only take a few moments of your time, and could very well be instrumental in killing a bill we don't want. Kate Turner, Assistant to Richard Stepp Berger, Stepp and Gorman, Attorneys at Law 216 Concorde Street Vienna, VA I strongly advise everyone to get involved. ---------------------------------------- ARTISTS AND WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE... YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT BAD TASTE! Email: lamp@igc.apc.org - Website: http://www.igc.apc.org/laborart __________________________ To subscribe to AGITPROP NEWS, the LAMP weekly digest of news and humor for artists and activists: Send to: listserv@email.rutgers.edu Message: subscribe agitprop_news Your Name Mike Alewitz, Artistic Director 7. Reader Feedback About the #12 article: WebGalaxy, Inc. [Gridrunner; 6-21-99] Is the IBT going commercial or what? Did someone have a problem with the old IBT web site, or did some high-pressure saleperson get his foot in the door of the "Marble Palace?" Maybe a friend of a friend? I suppose we'll start seeing lots of "fun and games" from the IBT's new ISP, that will further detract from the many short-comings of our organizing, labor agreements, lawsuits, lack of representation of members, etc., as the IBT seeks to attract new interest in the Union, just like a corporation would do. The pending trend toward a more "corporate-friendly" style, should scare the hell out of members, who take a beating every work-day from unscrupulous employers who have little respect for human rights, let alone a contract: let UPS and OVERNITE be your guide to these abuses! The "little people" should wake up and "smell the roses" of the new-found friendlyness of the IBT's leadership, and ask themselves "who's side are they on, anyway?" The worker or the company????? Time will tell, but then it may be too late! A "corporate agenda usually SUCKS!" Dennis L. Anderson Columbus, Ohio 6-25-99 8. FedEx Organizing Update FedEx & Teamsters Union Brothers & Sisters, Just wanted to fill you in on some exciting "self-help" developments regarding the unionization process at FedEx. 1. This Sunday, July 18, 8:00 PM Central, FedEx tractor-trailer driver Tom Price [WOLFHYBRID@aol.com] will be hosting our first inter-ISP organizing chat. This chat builds upon the success of our previous chat series, which was confined to AOL members. To participate in this and future inter-ISP chats, you MUST download AOL's absolutely free InstantMessenger [AIM]. You do NOT have to subscribe to AOL or purchase anything; it is FREE. Even AOL members who use "normal" IM need to download at least the 2.0, and preferably the 2.1, AIM version. You will find it at: AOL Instant Messengerhttp://www.newaol.com/aim/friend.html Once you have downloaded AIM, there is one more thing you must do. To gain entrance into the chat, you must Email Tom [WOLFHYBRID@aol.com] and myself [BobKutchko@aol.com] and notify us of the SCREEN NAME you have registered with for AIM. This is VERY IMPORTANT! When the chatroom is opened, we won't know you are on-line, and therefore won't be able to bring you in, unless you have given us your screen name and we have added it to our own AIM lists. 2. Kevin Osiowy, Chicago courier, ex-manager, webmaster and analyst par excellence, has just updated his FEDUP website once again. You can locate FEDUP at either of two locations: Fed Uphttp://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kevin_osiowy/ Fed Uphttp://www.megsinet.com/kevinosiowy/ 3. I am VERY close to posting new updates of my existing websites, as well as launching two new sites. As many of you know, I've been working hard on these projects for some time. I apologize for the delay. Technical challenges combined with the tremendous amount of information I've been processing [provided by many of you FedEx'ers throughout the nation!] have slowed me down a bit. But I PROMISE the wait will be worth it! Among the projects close to completion is the beginnings of a nationwide FedEx organizing newsletter. 4. I also want to let you know that a brand new website by another FedEx Union Brother is under construction. This well-documented "look what happened to me!" site promises to help expose routine FedEx managerial incompetence and unfairness like you wouldn't believe! I am not at liberty to tell you more at this time, but will help him announce it to you at the appropriate moment. He still has a lot of work to do to get it ready to post, but he is off to a real good start. Finally, management has recently announced a minor modification to our pension program. They are changing the calculations formula from the highest "five consecutive years" to the "five highest years." Although this change should result in somewhat higher pensions, I believe it is important for us to understand what is REALLY going on here. Our Union Movement has been publicizing how inadequate our pension is; for most FedEx workers, the pension will actually be hundreds of thousands of dollars less than a comparable UPS Teamster. A minor managerial cosmetic change will NOT change that fact, or our general argument. If anything, our case is STRENGTHENED! First, management is tacitly admitting that the pension is in big need of improvement. Secondly, they obviously are feeling the heat of an important issue we have raised, and they are searching for ways to defuse our growing Union Movement, or they wouldn't be reacting to us. That is, we are capable of setting the agenda and naming the turf of battle. Thirdly, management is proving what we have been saying all along: WITHOUT A UNION CONTRACT, they can change our benefits and pension anyway they see fit-- and not necessarily favorably! Will the pension plan even BE there years from now? Without a Union, who knows! Let's keep the heat on about the pension issue. Fulltime UPS Teamsters have it in writing; they KNOW they can get $2500/month after 25 years of work; $3000 after 30; or $3500 after 35 years. It's interesting that FedEx "hides" our amounts behind "complicated" pension formulas. But then, they have a lot to conceal, don't they? Our Union Makes Us Strong! Bob Kutchko/FedEx courier IXDA [Kansas City area] member Teamster Organizing Committee ----------------- 9. TDU Member Sites, TDU Volunteer Organizing Sites, TDU Rank & File Power Campaign Sites, Local Union Elections. It's ourTeamsters Local Union! ~Vote~ Reform Slate December 1999.
Mark Woods, Airborne and a TDU member/activist/friend in Kentucky!
Michael Moore
ForMeatpackers, Walkout Was Step Forward and Back
Horizon Air Organizing Campaign 1999!
PUGET SOUND TRUCKERS UNITE!
NW Fedex Organizing page.
Fed Up Home Page
Jim Panian on staff at L-174 and TDU!
Glenn S. Cisco Evergreen Chapter TDU CoChair 10. Coke. The Real Thing? Employs Firm Specializing in Replacement Workers Vancouver Province newspaper Jack Keating Staff Reporter July 12, 1999 Coke 'union-busting,' say Teamsters Albertan strike breakers are delivering Coca-Cola to the company's Coquitlam distribution centre, locked-out Teamsters charged yesterday. Coquitlam RCMP were called to defuse two picket-line incidents on the weekend as the company stepped up efforts to move its product in the six-week-old dispute involving 280 Lower Mainland employees. "Scab truckers from Calgary are...getting very aggressive and it's very dangerous," picket captain Mike Guthro said yesterday. "They're pushing pickets with the bumpers of their trucks." On Saturday, the company was granted a court order limiting to four the number of pickets at any time at each of the Coquitlam and Richmond facilities. The firm has also hired security guards from a Troy, Michigan based company called Alternative Workforce Inc. that specializes in "professional replacement-worker services" during strikes and lockouts. "It's American-style union-busting," said Guthro. "These security guys are harassing us and trying to intimidate us on the line." Coca-Cola wants non-union employees to take over merchandising from unionized truck drivers. The company wants to pay $10 an hour to new hires rather than $20 to the current employees, say union officials. About 50 workers would lose their jobs immediately under the schemes. Coca-Cola made $4.46 billion US in revenues for the fourth quarter of 1998. The company was unavailable for comment. Striking workers are from Teamsters Local 213. ------------------------- Vancouver Province newspaper Jack Keating Staff Reporter July 14, 1999 B.C. Fed Backs Coke Boycott, Nixes Hot Edict The B.C. Federation of Labour is supporting the Teamsters union boycott of Coca-Cola in British Columbia. "We're endorsing the bocott of Coke and asking our members and the public to boycott Coca-Cola until there is a settlement in this labour dispute," Jim Sinclair, president of the 450,000 member Fed, said yesterday. Coca-Cola, which locked out 280 Teamster employees in Richmond, Coquitlam and Chilliwack May 31, reacted immediately. "Naturally we're disappointed by the B.C. Federation of Labour's actions," Sandra Banks, vice-president of public affairs, said from Toronto. "We will continue to operate our B.C. business in a responsible manner, respecting all standards and laws in the province." The Fed stopped short of issuing a "hot edict" on Coke. But Sinclair does not rule out a hot edict--advising its members not to handle Coke product. The federation also called on its 1,100 affiliated unions to persuade their employers to refuse distribution of Coke products through vending machines at workplaces, colleges, schools and hospitals. About 75 union members distributed leaflets at McDonald's Restaurant at Boundary and Lougheed in Vancouver yesterday, urging customers not to drink Coke products. Coke is unilaterally tring to take away the right to be in a union for some of its members, said Sinclair. "I was talking to people who have been in the union 26 years and who are facing the prospect of, suddenly, they're not going to have a union represent them any more. In this province usually it's a democratic vote of workers whether to have a union or not."
Perspective from the ranks... for the ranks. editor: jon anderson Teamsters rank & file Local 31 e-mail: caissa@intouch.bc.ca |
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