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Vol. 73/No. 13      April 6, 2009

 
On the Picket Line
 
Steelworkers picket Merck
over cuts in union jobs
RAHWAY, New Jersey—More than 300 workers at Merck & Co., one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical corporations, picketed in front of the plant here March 16 to protest company demands to outsource 178 union jobs. Some 480 members of the United Steelworkers of America Local 4-575 work at the Rahway facility. Merck is also trying to outsource work at its plants in West Point, Pennsylvania, and Elkton, Virginia.

“We’d be doing the same work in the same place but we wouldn’t be in the union, our pay would be cut in half, and we’d lose our benefits,” Cheryl Stevens said. “And that’s if they decide to offer us a job," Betty Woodward added. Stevens has worked in facility services for eight years and Woodward in lab services for nine. Stevens and Woodward noted that a new contracting company is already setting up, even though the union contract doesn’t expire until April 30.

Workers circled the two blocks in front of the main entrance to the plant behind a large Steelworkers banner and an American flag. Handmade signs included “Shame on Merck,” “We still care about Merck’s future, why don’t they care about ours,” and “No scab labor.”

—Sara Lobman

Regional airline unions in Japan
hold one-day strike
Some 600 pilots and other airline workers struck Japan's largest domestic airline March 18. The one-day strike forced the cancellation of 137 flights. The last time the airline, All Nippon Airways or ANA, had cancelled flights due to a strike was in April 2007.

ANA plans to cut $142 million in labor costs by slashing wages and bonuses, reported Bloomberg. The four unions that struck the airline said that they were forced to act to prevent the difference in wages and salaries being paid between the main airline and its subsidiaries from widening. The union and the company were also unable to reach agreement over safety procedures and work conditions.

—Sam Manuel

Bus drivers in Ireland
reject 'cost cuts,' layoffs
Workers in two unions at Dublin Bus in Ireland voted by wide margins March 19 to reject a "cost cutting" plan by the company to remove 120 buses from service and lay off 160 new drivers. It also calls for other changes in working conditions and job security, reported a RTé news program.

RTé also reported that the company expressed its disappointment with the vote and said it would now have no choice but to implement the cuts and layoffs.

Willie Noone, branch organizer for SIPTU, one of two unions at the company, said workers would take strike action if the company proceeds with the plan.

—Sam Manuel
 
 
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