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Vol. 71/No. 9      March 5, 2007

 
On the Picket Line
 
Rail workers in Canada
strike for a new contract
Some 2,800 rail yard workers across Canada, members of the United Transportation Union, walked off the job February 10 in their fight for a new contract. The strikers reported that 96 percent of 2,200 who voted opted to take strike action against Canadian National Railway (CN). The previous contract expired at the end of December.

“Enough is enough,” striker Darwin Skelliter told the Militant, on the picket line at the giant MacMillan Yard north of Toronto. He said that workers are fed up with harassment and intimidation tactics by management, and are demanding a 40 minute meal break in a nine-hour shift instead of the 20 minutes they get now. The union is also demanding a 13 percent wage increase over three years and is fighting to defend current rest rules that are under attack by the bosses.

CN bosses have threatened to sue union officials, and are asking the Canada Labour Relations Board to declare the strike illegal. CN is the fifth largest rail line in North America by revenue, carrying freight across Canada and throughout the United States.

—John Steele

Minnesota: Twin Cities janitors
approve new contract
MINNEAPOLIS—More than 300 members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26 overwhelmingly voted February 10 to ratify a new contract with the Minnesota-St. Paul Service Contractors Association. The pact lowers workers’ health-care costs and raises wages of full-time workers $1.20 an hour over the three-year contract. Those working part time will get $1.70 an hour.

At the ratification meeting held at the United Labor Center, a Somali woman said that this was just the beginning, since the bosses will not respect the contract and we all need to be ready to fight.

—Julian Santana  
 
 
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