The Militant - April 1, 2013 -- On the Picket Line

Vol. 77/No. 12 April 1, 2013

On the Picket Line

Bay Area unionists stage 5-hour
strike against Waste Management

SAN FRANCISCO—More than 200 members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6 in the East Bay held a five-hour work stoppage March 15 to protest union attacks by Waste Management. They picketed locations in Oakland, San Leandro and Livermore/Altamont.

Leading up to the action, workers filed charges against Waste Management with the National Labor Relations Board for threatening and intimidating employees, implementing workplace policies without bargaining with the union and mistreating immigrant workers.

Last December—on the eve of a strike—three workers who participated in union activities were fired after the company used the government’s E-Verify program to check employees’ work authorization. The strike was subsequently called off.

“It was intended to send a signal to an almost 100 percent immigrant workforce that they’d better not engage in concerted union activity like that,” union lawyer Peter Saltzman told the San Francisco Chronicle.

At a March 16 union workshop on recycling plant safety, more than a dozen workers spoke about the action.

“Supervisors were surprisingly nice yesterday,” said Mirella Jauregui.

“This was the first time they saw that we can defend our rights. It was good because it showed we were not sad or scared—we were content, dancing and talking on the line,” said Agustin Ramirez, ILWU lead organizer. All Waste Management truck drivers, who are organized by the Teamsters, honored the picket line, but a few Machinists-organized mechanics crossed, Ramirez said.

In 2007, some 500 Teamsters were locked out by Waste Management for 28 days, during which ILWU Local 6 members honored their picket lines.

“The strike was a warning to Waste Management, the largest waste management company in the world, that their abusive treatment has to end,” Peter Olney, ILWU organizing director, told the Militant.

—Carole Lesnick and Willie Cotton

Montreal postal workers: ‘We are
human beings, not machines’

MONTREAL—Several hundred postal workers, their families and supporters held a nighttime demonstration March 2 to denounce a productivity drive that includes speedup, longer hours and job combinations.

The workers, members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, marched through downtown Montreal, joining the annual Montreal in Lights festival. Many of the workers wore forehead lamps to show how letter carriers are often forced to deliver mail in the dark because of the length of their routes.

“We are not machines. We are human beings,” inside mail-sorting machine operator Veronique Gagnon told the Militant. Gagnon, who has worked the job for eight years, is in a wheelchair because of a herniated disk she said resulted from increased hours and line speed on the job.

“I start work at 10 a.m. and often work till eight or nine at night,” said letter carrier Hughes Lebrau. “They’ve lengthened our schedules, our routes and in my area they fused three offices into one that offers no service to the public.”

Many signs blamed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the deteriorating work conditions. In June 2011, Canada’s 48,000 postal workers were forced back to work by strikebreaking legislation imposed by Harper’s government following two weeks of rotating strikes against concession demands. Canada Post Corporation, which is owned by the federal government, then locked out the workers for 11 days.

Speakers at the start of the demonstration included Alain Duguay, president of the Montreal local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Denis Lemelin, CUPW national president; and Alexandre Boulerice, New Democratic Party Member of Parliament.

“We sent a message to the bosses and to Ottawa,” letter carrier and CUPW shop steward Yves Delva said in a phone interview after the action. “We may not see the impact on the shop floor right away. But eventually we will.”

—John Steele

Wash.: 5-day strike protests high
health costs for hospital workers

OLYMPIA, Wash.—One hundred Service Employees International Union members and their supporters gathered outside St. Peter Hospital here March 13 to protest rising health care costs for workers employed by Providence Health & Services. The Catholic “nonprofit” company and its affiliate Swedish Health Services run 35 hospitals and 350 clinics in Washington, Oregon, Montana, California and Alaska.

Two days before the action, hundreds of hospital workers walked off the job. The work stoppage ended March 16.

“As we marched back into work I felt that we were more unified than ever,” Angel Roberson, an emergency room technician at St. Peter told the Militant in a phone interview March 18.

“The company raised the yearly deductibles from $500 a year to $3,000 for two people,” Donna Rogers, a dietary worker at St. Peter told the Militant. “For families, the deductible is now $6,000 a year.”

“My husband has to take prescriptions that used to be covered under the old plan but now cost us $300 a month,” said Abbey Bruce, a certified nursing assistant. “This is my first union job and I was a bit nervous about that. But after I talked to my coworkers I saw that we are all going through the same thing.”

Scabs are being brought in from other Providence hospitals and temporary agencies, according to hospital officials’ statements to the press.

The company has not responded to requests by the Militant to comment.

“People are going to avoid going to the doctor so they won’t have to pay these high deductibles,” Bob Wilson, an operating room technician and member of the union bargaining team, told the Militant.

Speakers at the rally included state representatives and SEIU members from other bargaining units.

—Edwin Fruit