Some 670 workers hit the bricks on May 1, 1998, in a fight against forced overtime and two-tier wages, and for pension and health-care benefits for retirees. Titan bosses are now running the plant with scab labor.

Most strikers have gotten jobs at other plants in the area while continuing to picket the struck plant. Many work at Bridgestone/Firestone across town, where the union contract covering six plants around the country expires April 23.

About 10 Titan strikers are currently on strike for a second time at Smurfit-Stone Container where Teamsters Local 147 walked out December 31. Two carloads of strikers are making the trip to Mansfield, Ohio, for the March 25 solidarity rally for USWA Local 169, locked out at AK Steel since September.

Another 500 Steelworkers have been on strike against Titan Tire's plant in Natchez, Mississippi, since September 1998. Titan refused to negotiate with the union there after purchasing the plant.

In February, Polk County district judge Artis Reis ruled Local 164 to be in contempt of a court order imposed in the early days of the strike that restricted picketing. The judge asserted that the unionists used threatening and intimidating language as scabs were leaving the plant parking lot on two particular days in December.

At a sentencing hearing March 10, Local 164 was ordered to reimburse Titan for attorney fees the company incurred in pursuing the case against the union. The judge declined to impose harsher sanctions. The episode has led to discussions among strikers on how to organize more effective picketing at the plant gate.

In another matter, Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officials in early March "proposed" $150,000 in fines against the company for "willful" and "serious" safety violations in connection with a deadly incident last year.

A massive explosion and fire erupted November 24 as a tanker truck containing the highly flammable chemical heptane was being unloaded.

One worker, truck driver Douglas Oswald, 25, was killed instantly. Valves on pipes used to unload the chemical into the plant were improperly set. For more than an hour, 2,000 gallons of the material spilled onto the ground and into the street, and a passing car sparked the explosion. Initial media reports sought to cast suspicion on the strikers for the blast.

Days after the state fine was announced, pickets observed an injured strikebreaker being taken from the plant by ambulance. Titan personnel director Joyce Kain ran out of the plant, pushing and slapping strikers videotaping the incident. Strikers report that rescue crews have responded to some 40 serious emergency calls at the plant over the course of the strike.

For more information on the April 29 solidarity rally, call USWA Local 164 at (515) 262-4935.

Ray Parsons is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 310 at Bridgestone/Firestone in Des Moines.  
 
 
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