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MANSFIELD, Ohio — Locked- out steelworkers from Mansfield, Ohio, picketed the stockholders meeting of Armco, Inc., in Pittsburgh September 29. The occasion was the vote being held to sell the rolling mill company to AK Steel, which was holding its own stockholders meeting at the same time in Wilmington, Delaware. Another busload of members of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 169 members, which represents the 620 locked-out mill workers, picketed that meeting.

The lockout began at 11 p.m. August 31 when the old contract expired and workers who showed up for that shift found the newly installed gates closed and a gang of guards hired from Securcorp on the other side. The company demands the right to force overtime, including minutes before a worker is scheduled to go home. Workers also resent the harassment they received inside the mill from the newly hired guards during the weeks before the lockout.

There have been many gestures of solidarity from local unionists and others in this manufacturing city of 50,000 people. Signs stating "We support our steelworkers" are appearing in the windows of cars and neighborhood stores. Members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 549 at the local GM stamping plant followed up their visits to the picket line with a plant gate collection of $7,525, the largest such collection in their history.

Six members of USWA Local 341, who are locked out at Kaiser Aluminum in Heath, Ohio, visited the Mansfield picket September 23. About 30 Armco workers joined the send-off rally for a solidarity car caravan to the Kaiser picket line on October 3, marking the one-year anniversary of the fight there. "We need to have unity, we need to have solidarity!" declared Bob Muth of USWA Local 169 at this rally.

During a September 27 hearing by the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services to determine if members of Local 169 are to receive unemployment compensation, Armco management again claimed that it started the lockout because of an alleged danger of sabotage by its employees. But the company presented no evidence of this and did not challenge their right to unemployment.

The next day, Richland County Common Pleas Judge James Henson placed a preliminary injunction, which is a permanent order, on the local. His previous temporary restraining order September 3 set a limit of four pickets at each gate. All others had to be at least 300 feet away. The new injunction extends this to 750 feet, including a street corner near the south gate where steelworkers had gathered to publicize the lockout. Someone who lives across the street from the mill is now allowing the steelworkers to use their yard to set up a tent and signs, free from the injunction.

Other new restrictions include a measure barring a person from possessing any object which might be used as a weapon, or from disguising their identity within a 750 foot zone around each gate. Other provisions restrict the Securcorp guards to four at each gate during a shift change and bar them from video-surveillance of Local 169's union hall and parking lot.

At this time 12 workers have been indicted for alleged acts during a September 10 confrontation with vanloads of security guards. Five of them are members of USWA Local 8530 at Ideal Electric. The police are scanning rolls of videotape in an effort to identify others for prosecution.

Meanwhile, a guard who was fired from Securcorp described to union members and the Mansfield News Journal the long hours and low morale of the guards and of the scabs working in the mill. He is going back home to his painting business in Florida. 
 

Michigan bus drivers protest conditions

DETROIT — More than 400 of the 500 unionists scheduled to drive this city's buses called in sick September 24. The drivers, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 26, were protesting the lack of progress in contract negotiations, unsafe buses, and low pay. The ATU's 973 members have been without a contract with Detroit's Department of Transportation (DDOT) since June 1998. The union and city met September 15 with both sides rejecting the proposals put forward by the other.

Drivers told the press they took the action because there are too few buses in the system. Many of the vehicles are unsafe due to bad brakes and wheels and poor maintenance. Drivers complained of poor security, with bus radios often inoperable.

Strikes by public bus drivers are formally illegal in Michigan, but that didn't deter the drivers. Nathanael Franklin, Jr. summ-ed up many drivers attitude when he told reporters, "The union had no recourse.… What's the point of a union if you can't strike?" The anger among ATU members is fed by the fact that they are among the lowest paid public bus drivers in Michigan. They start at $9.85 and top out at about $13.65 an hour.

DDOT normally carries about 140,000 riders a day, Monday through Friday, many of them low wage workers. City buses feed the suburban bus system, the Southeast Michigan Rapid Transit Authority. Bosses in the suburbs complained that the action disrupted their operations because the sick out effectively shut down the bus service. DDOT officials reported that only about 30 out of the usual 400 buses were on the street that afternoon.

Drivers warned their riders of the planned sick out the day before, so many workers were able to make arrangements. This response may explain why the mayor and other government functionaries decided not to try to victimize either the drivers or their local union under the states' no strike legislation. City officials did threaten to take actions, including bringing in other bus companies to run city routes, if there is another job action.

One week earlier, drivers for Flint's Mass Transportation Authority (MTA) staged a 30-minute strike to protest company violations of their union contract. The Flint Journal reported that the action was promoted by company changes to seniority rights, the reduction of one worker from full-time to part-time, and changes in the way the students who use city buses are transported.

LaVard Lewis an MTA driver for more than 20 years, said, "When it comes to our seniority rights, that's where we draw the line. We live by the contract. We feel that management should live by the contract too." Flint drivers returned to work after union officials demanded they end their job action. 
 

Teachers in Detroit ratify contract following strike

DETROIT — Detroit Federation of Teachers officials announced September 24 that union members had ratified a new labor agreement, by a vote of three to one. On August 30 teachers had rejected the leadership's proposal to extend their old contract 10 days and had gone on strike. After nine days on the picket line the teachers voted at a mass meeting to return to work, September 8, pending a vote on the proposed settlement.

During the strike, officials in the 172,000-student district attempted to portray the teachers as trying to block educational reforms that are suppose to aid students. This effort backfired, however, and the officials were put on the defensive as working people recognized the justice of the teachers' demands for decent wages and smaller class size. There was no attempt to open schools and the recently appointed school board did not even try to use a new state law that increased the penalties against each teacher who takes part in a strike. But the threat of more severe legislative intervention against the strike hung over the talks, with the governor and numerous state legislators threatening new laws.

The teachers kept up spirited picket lines during the first week of the strike. Well over 3,000 teachers and their supporters descended on the school administration building for a mass protest September 3, and hundreds of teachers led the traditional Labor Day Parade through downtown Detroit.

The new contract includes a 2 percent pay raise for most teachers each year of the three-year deal. The most senior instructors will receive a 10 percent increase over the life of the contract. Union officials reported that the new wage structure was designed to bring all district teachers to 95 percent of the median pay for teachers in southeastern Michigan. The contract grants a 20 percent increase for school supplies and lowers class size in kindergarten through third grades in 44 schools. This is the first time that the Detroit school system has agreed to any guaranteed class reduction, but many teachers see this as a token because more than 260 public schools are overcrowded.

The union made some concessions. Teachers now face disciplinary action if they use more than eight unexcused sick days a year. Under the last contract teachers could use all the sick days they had accumulated over their years of service. Teachers also face tougher requirements to move through the steps in the salary scale.

Henry Hillenbrand, a member of USWA Local 185 in Cleveland, and John Sarge, a member of UAW Local 900 in Wayne, Michigan, contributed to this column.  
 
 
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