The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 28      July 14, 2008

 
On the Picket Line
 
N.Y. construction workers
march to defend unions
NEW YORK—Some 400 construction workers, many with their hardhats on, marched from Yankee Stadium June 18 to protest the growing use of nonunion labor in the construction industry in this city.

Contingents carried banners identifying marchers as members of unions representing carpenters, plasterers, laborers, operating engineers, mason tenders, iron workers, and others.

James Tanner, a shop steward for the carpenters union, said, “Union workers are only 40 percent on construction sites today and it is shrinking. We are from different unions today, but we watch each other’s backs. We have young, skilled union workers finishing apprenticeship programs who cannot find union jobs. Unions are needed.”

—Dan Fein

Denver janitors fight for
higher wages, benefits
DENVER—Flashing purple shirts and picket signs some 200 people came to march on the Civic Center here June 17 to support the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 105, which is fighting to increase wages and benefits for more than 2,000 janitors at about 25 cleaning companies. The janitors’ current contract expires June 28.

SEIU representative Jason Bane outlined the union’s primary demands as workload reduction, better wages, improved benefits, and a fair distribution of health care. Currently only full time janitors in the downtown area receive family health-care benefits, the Denver Post reported.

The Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute lists the self-sufficiency wage for an adult in Denver County as $7.52 per hour. The present starting wage for janitors is $8.10.

—John Banister

Food court workers strike
at New Zealand airport
AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Thirty workers employed in the food court at Auckland International Airport and their supporters held a lively picket outside the main terminal building June 28 to protest what their union, Unite, calls “New Zealand’s worst employment contract.” The two-hour walkout followed a similar action June 7.

Picketers handed out a union leaflet that explained that the contract says food court workers have a start time but no finish time, meaning they could work for one hour or 10 hours a day, depending on the supervisor’s say-so. This year the company reduced the average shift length to seven-and-a half hours so it wouldn’t have to give two 15-minute paid breaks. The workers receive minimum wage or slightly above. Minimum wage in New Zealand is NZ$12 an hour (US$9).

Union delegate Joseph Tikitau told the Militant that in the face of company intimidation workers at the site began three years ago trying to organize a union. “When we started there were only a few of us, but it’s growing,” he said. There are now 60 workers in the union, more than half of the food court’s workforce.

—Terry Coggan  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home