Vol. 72/No. 18 May 5, 2008
One of the main issues is how to implement a two-tier wage scale agreement the UAW and GM made during national contract negotiations last October. The company is demanding that “noncore production” workers get about half the wage of assembly line workers.
The strike comes as more than two dozen GM plants remain idle because of a strike by workers at American Axle and Manufacturing, a GM parts supplier.
Local 602’s walkout came a day after UAW workers struck Alliance Interiors, a plant supplying carpeting for the vehicles produced at the Lansing plant.
—Ved Dookhun
New Zealand unionists fight for
collective contract
HAMILTON, New Zealand—Ten workers picketed outside Ecolab’s Hamilton factory April 16, as their strike entered its third week. Fifteen members of the Engineers, Printing and Manufacturing Union walked off the job April 2 to press their demands for a contract with higher pay and improved working conditions.
The strike began after Ecolab, which makes industrial cleaners, refused to discuss the workers’ demands. They have been trying to negotiate a contract for the past 18 months. A central demand has been to join the Metals and Manufacturing Multi-Employer Collective Agreement, which covers around 2,000 workers at 180 companies and sets the going rates and conditions for workers across the sector. Currently all Ecolab workers are on individual contracts.
The closed shop has been banned in New Zealand since 1991. Almost all unionized workplaces operate under a contract with the union as well as with individual workers.
In the face of this kind of treatment workers have been joining the union. There are about 50 workers at the Hamilton factory. Under the impact of the strike a few workers at other Ecolab sites around the country have now joined the union. “A lot more people want to sign up but are too afraid,” said union delegate Phillip Strawbridge. “If we get a contract more people will want to join the union.”
—Ruth Gray
Front page (for this issue) |
Home |
Text-version home